2003 Film List - Page 14

Thomas McCarthy's The Station Agent.

Next Up: The Human Stain

~Edwin

Lost in La Mancha
7.5 of 10
It's a pretty well-told documentary which does a nice job of tying together the subject of the film being made with the production of the film itself. Unlike the often forced soap opera drama of Project Greenlight, here the audience sees what real cinema disasters look like and they are sickening to watch. At one point a flood begins to carry all of the equipment and set pieces away and my stomach just dropped even though I knew the film was doomed anyway.

It could have scored better if it had dealt a bit more with the emotional exchange that had to be going on with the players rather than spending most of the film as a semi-neutral recorder of history. For all the disaster we don't see too much in the way of real conflict, though its clear that there had to be some very spirited moments between the crew.

In that way La Mancha is all problems without the drama while Greenlight is all drama without the problems (at least the big boy problems that Gilliam's team was met by).


In the end I was impressed with the brief glimpses of the film, sets, costumes and storyline. It really does appear that this would have been a fantastic film, at least for Gilliam fans like myself. It really seems unfair that it fell apart like that.

Updated with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days


A run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. It gets some laughs, has a beautiful leading lady (who basically is the whole show) but fails to add any depth in this tired genre.

Raymond

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May

I thought I’d give this one a try as it appeared recently in a handful of Top 10 lists so far this year. What a POS! I never thought I’d use those words to describe a film. But anything less would be pure dishonesty on my part. This film is just vile and disgusting in its disguised pretentiousness. It offers nothing new to the genre. With this film, the last thing we need is rationalizing the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world and applauding them for their actions while passing it off as entertainment.

There are some who are quick to dismiss that those who dislike this film does not know anything about movies. Well, I’m happy to be in the company of “those people”. I can understand a certain predilection towards a particular genre. But “one of the best films of the year”? You got to be kidding.

~Edwin

Added a few:

Winged Migration - Dazzling. I was like hip-mo-tized.

House of Sand and Fog - Fans of heavy drama will dig this one. I definitely did.

The Battle of Shaker Heights - Never helps when your main character is an insufferable little putz. It's the Igby rule.

Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns - Fans will love it; non-fans will enjoy it for about 40-some minutes before getting bored. DVD is loaded with cool TMBG goodies, too!

..and I never said May was one of the best movies I've seen this year.

I said it was the best.

Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things.

~Edwin

Updated my list with the very good:

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

An excellent genre picture, it just sort of flows from scene to scene. Having the restrictions of making a movie in such a confined environment it's really something to have each scene be fresh and have the movie seem much shorter than it's running time.

A lot of great individual scenes too that really stand out. Loved the "classical music as a score" too, and who woulda thought Russell Crowe could play violin.

Lowell

Looney Tunes Back In Action: Funny and entertaining. The "Tunes" and live action work well together. There's a number of funny references and injokes and even some creative animated sequences that hearken back to the imagination of Chuck Jones. Brendan Frasier does an admirable job of keeping up with the silliness and Jenna Elfman shows off some quality gams . The only real minus is Steve Martin's completely stupid villain.

I thought the humor was too adult skewed for my kids (4 and 2) but they both ended up really enjoying it. B

Another week, another few films.

On the rep-house list, we have Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe in How To Marry A Millionaire and Sonny Chiba in The Executioner. Both were kind of cruddy prints, but at least Millionaire was a good movie.

I added Bill Plympton's "Parking" (½) and Don Hertzfeldt's "Welcome To The Show/Intermission In The Third Dimension/End Of The Show" (¾) to the shorts list; both are good reasons for seeking out Hertzfeldt & Judge's "Animation Show".

Inner Senses has gotten a few good reviews at asian/horror film festivals, and has the notereity of being Leslie Cheung's last role, but it's ultimately not a very good movie. It's not bad, per se, but it's not exactly a high note for an actor so respected to go out on. Eerily, the plot involves at least one character jumping from a building. ½

The Matrix Revolutions: The Imax Experience was $10 dollars of suck and $4 of Zion being attacked. Really, it's a darn good thing I can be mollified by new and creative ways of blowing stuff up, otherwise I'd really hate this movie.

(I'm expecting apologies from everyone who mocked me liking the new Star Wars movies more than The Matrix series any day now... )

Added the compelling, sobering Elephant and the handsome, rousing The Last Samurai.

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Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa.


Next Up: Pieces of April


~Edwin

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Just in time for Thanksgiving: Peter Hedges' Pieces of April.


Next Up: The Last Samurai

~Edwin

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Over the past week or so I've added:

21 Grams (4.5)
Bad Santa (4)
Elephant (4)
Gothika (2)
The Haunted Mansion (2)
The Last Samurai (4.5)
The Missing (3)
Pieces of April (4)

X2: X-Men United: Dare I say it was X-cellent. In several ways I think it is the best "comic book" movie yet (though a good deal of that can be attributed to the fact that the X-Men are my favorite comic characters to have had a movie made of their exploits). I only wish we could see X3 immediately. The Phoenix stuff is perfect. The only problem I see is that it won't mean nearly as much to the casual viewer because the movies have spent very little time showing Jean and Scott together. She says she loves him several times, but its Wolvie and Jean that have all the screen time. Whereas readers had 100 issues of Jean and Scott's relationship. But its much better to have something made for the fans like this, than completly compromised like the latter Batman movies or The Punisher.

The acting is mostly superb, the pacing is just right, and the action and fights pulled off with aplomb, unlike The Hulk (see below). A-

Elephant I appreciated in theme and technique, but I didn't connect with it emotionally the way I did with Van Sant's Gerry. A good movie for how it depicts the unpredictability and unexplainability of the violence that surrounds us, but for me, not an outstanding one. B+

The Hulk I enjoyed the multi-split screen editing and a few of the weighty dramatic scenes. There are some good concepts but the movie doesn't work for me due to several factors. 1. The CGI Hulk looks stupid and the fight scenes look like video games 2. I've never liked the Hulk that much because he's too tough and I never took to Banner 3. The military/evil corporate foes are simply unexciting. Give me a good supervillain any day. Where's "The Leader"? He can't be too busy these days. C+

and the gem of the weekend:

Tibet: Cry Of The Snow Lion a moving and painful documentary about the Chinese subjugation of Tibet and how the Chinese are virtually expunging Tibetan culture. Chinese rule has resulted in the death of 1 out of
every 6 Tibetans. If it shows up in your area, I highly recommend it. A

Updated with 2 in the "pretty good" file, and 1 in the "best in class" category:

School Of Rock... Man, I wish I hadn't waited for the second-run on this one. One of the funniest movies of the year. (It's been kind of amusing watching the local alterna-rag try to justify liking a PG-rated mainstream comedy by claiming it's something subversive) ¾

Pieces Of April is the most watchable film I've seen out of InDigEnt; someday I'll understand why they hire name actors and procede to make a film that looks cheap. Like many of its Winick-produced siblings, it's talky and seems to pad its runtime out, but does have enjoyable characters.

Bad Santa is good, but unfortunately not as brilliant as I thought it could be with some of the talent inolved. Still a good antidote to the sugary stuff that the holidays bring out.

Oh, and since I haven't gotten any response to the the thread in the Bargains forum - would anyone be interested in splitting a book of Loews "Weekday Escape" tickets with me? $5 a pop for any movie - including those released that day - and a small popcorn Monday-Thursday is a pretty good deal (I just can't quite swing 50 at once). Email/PM me if you'd be interested.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
9.5 of 10
I mulled this score over quite a bit. It felt a bit more like a 9 based on the power of the film on my emotions, but I really couldn't spot anything wrong with it to any great extent.

The one problem the film has is that the script is a little troubled in trying to identify the flow or direction of the primary narrative theme. This is a very minor flaw however, as the film does have a sense of basic focus in a couple of areas: the idea of experiencing the time and place and the idea of seeing these sailors mature with their experiences so that the skills and talents are passed down the line.

But it also firmly plants in a relationship between the warrior captain and the naturalist doctor. This is also well done but it shows how the film takes on a bit more primary themes than it can perfectly handle.

I only wish this was the "major" flaw of most films. Everything else about this film was outstanding. The script is well-written in terms of individual scenes, and those scenes are very well acted, easily on par with what you saw in A Beautiful Mind between the two leads. Art direction, effects, costumes, et al are incredible and involving.

While it didn't change my life or grip my soul like my favorite films have done, the highest praise I can give is that I am more than ready to see a few more of films following the adventures of the captain and his crew. This film seems quite likely to gain a Best Pix, Director and perhaps 2 Acting Oscar noms among others.

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B.

Updated with Bad Santa (*** 1/2).

Edward Zwick's The Last Samurai.


Next Up: XX/XY

~Edwin

Updated with The Last Samurai 1/2

Not a great (Kurosawa level) movie but a very, very enjoyable one. With Minority Report along with this movie, Tom Cruise is showing why he is a top actor, great roles and movies.

Also added some rentals and changed POTC rating.

Raymond

Austin Chick's XX/XY is another film that examines male-female relationships that this year has been better handled in Charlotte Sometimes and The Shape Of Things.


Next Up: Autumn Spring

~Edwin

Updated with:

Master & Commander - This was such a surprise for me, i'm not familiar with the O'Brien novels and I wouldn't call myself a fan of Crowe either. But this film delievered big time, I was totally immersed in the world Weir created. The film was such a great visual experience and simply gorgeous to look at.

and

Cabin Fever - I saw this just before M&C, definitely one for fans of the genre (I count myself as one). Plenty of gore, laughs and homages to be found here. It delievered exactly what I expected.

Note: I also changed my Film List to something simpler. I got sick of getting lost in a sea of HTML.