2003 Film List - Page 4

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-

.

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.

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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. ¾

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.

Updated with T3.

-Dennis

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

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.

T3
7 of 10
There is nothing inherently wrong with T3. The action is pretty furious and well-staged, and more surprisingly the underlying story is actually a nice bit of development off the first two films.

And yet, after I left the theater and began to reflect on the film I couldn't help feeling that the entertainment factor was wearing off. The film just didn't make me care that I had seen it all that much. In the end I think the reason I have that feeling is because I had seen all the action scenarios before in T2 or T1. Yes, there were some slightly new angles on them and occassionally a funny twist to what we have seen before, and yes T2 did have some repeated twists on T1, but in this case T3 offers basically no new scenarios which T2 and T1 both had in spades. There is no scene that I saw and said "Wow, I've never seen that before" like both T1 and T2 had.

So in the end it becomes disposable entertainment despite having a very pleasing story idea underneath it. Also the acting was shakey from everyone but Nick Stahl, including Arnold who struggled playing a robot. Yeesh.

I also just knocked Daredevil down from a 7 to a 6 upon further reflection. I was being too forgiving on some of its sloppy 2nd half.

Also, I have Hulk at 7.5 even though T3 entertained me more and was a much crisper film, but I have given Lee credit for being much more ambitious with Hulk even when it didn't always work for me. At least with Hulk I will remember seeing him smashing a tank, and unfortunately I will also remember him catching a missle like a football.

Updated with Terminator 3 (2.5 out of 5), Sinbad (same) and Lilja 4-ever (4.5 / 5).

That is all.

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Updated with the disposable-but-funny-at-times Legally Blonde 2 and the not-great-like-T2-but-still-good Terminator 3.

Updated with Antoine Fuqua's Tears Of The Sun.

~Edwin

Last update: Oct 19, 2003 (with The Italian Job, Hollywood Homicide, The Matrix Reloaded, A Mighty Wind, The Core, Hulk, and Better Luck Tomorrow (whew!))

Criteria: First non-festival U.S. theatrical 2003 release.

Total 2003 movies seen to date: 39

Non-2003 movies seen for the first time in 2003, so far (not listed below): 78. (Most recently, True Lies)


Format: Movie title / date seen / score out of 10

By Title

Anger Management / 8-16-2003 / 4.5

Bend it Like Beckham / 4-10-2003 / 7.5
Better Luck Tomorrow / 10-5-2003 / 8.5
Bringing Down the House / 7-12-2003 / 2.5
Bruce Almighty / 8-4-2003 / 5.5

Confidence / 7-10-2003 / 7.5
The Core / 10-15-2003 / 3
Cube 2: Hypercube / 2-12-2003 / 5

Daredevil / 6-16-2003 / 5.5
Darkness Falls / 5-20-2003 / 1.5
Dirty Pretty Things / 6-24-2003 / 8.5
Dreamcatcher / 9-25-2003 / 5

Final Destination 2 / 8-2-2003 / 4
Finding Nemo / 9-14-2003 / 10

Garage Days / 7-2-2003 / 7
The Good Thief / 8-15-2003 / 7.5
The Guru / 5-3-2003 / 2.5

Hollywood Homicide / 10-7-2003 / 3.5
Hulk / 10-16-2003 / 5.5

Identity / 9-28-2003 / 8.5
Irreversible / 7-6-2003 / 8
The Italian Job / 10-2-2003 / 8

Journeys With George / 9-22-2003 / 7.5

Laurel Canyon / 7-10-2003 / 7.5

The Matrix: Reloaded / 10-10-2003 / 8
May / 6-14-2003 / 9
A Mighty Wind / 10-12-2003 / 7.5

Old School / 5-31-2003 / 4
Once Upon a Time in the Midlands / 5-14-2003 / 7

Phone Booth / 5-2-2003 / 6.5
People I Know / 1-21-2003 / 6

Scorched / 7-6-2003 / 3.5
Shanghai Knights / 9-13-2003 / 6
Shaolin Soccer / 11-16-2001 / 7
The Slaughter Rule / 4-27-2003 / 5

28 Days Later... / 5-18-2003 / 8

Winged Migration / 6-28-2003 / 5.5

X2 / 9-26-2003 / 9
xx/xy / 7-12-2003 / 8

By Rating

Finding Nemo / 9-14-2003 / 10

May / 6-14-2003 / 9
X2 / 9-26-2003 / 9

Better Luck Tomorrow / 10-5-2003 / 8.5
Dirty Pretty Things / 6-24-2003 / 8.5
Identity / 9-28-2003 / 8.5
28 Days Later... / 5-18-2003 / 8
Irreversible / 7-6-2003 / 8
The Italian Job / 10-2-2003 / 8
The Matrix: Reloaded / 10-10-2003 / 8
xx/xy / 7-12-2003 / 8

Bend it Like Beckham / 4-10-2003 / 7.5
Confidence / 7-10-2003 / 7.5
The Good Thief / 8-15-2003 / 7.5
Journeys With George / 9-22-2003 / 7.5
Laurel Canyon / 7-10-2003 / 7.5
A Mighty Wind / 10-12-2003 / 7.5
Garage Days / 7-2-2003 / 7
Once Upon a Time in the Midlands / 5-14-2003 / 7
Shaolin Soccer / 11-16-2001 / 7

Phone Booth / 5-2-2003 / 6.5
People I Know / 1-21-2003 / 6
Shanghai Knights / 9-13-2003 / 6

Bruce Almighty / 8-4-2003 / 5.5
Daredevil / 6-16-2003 / 5.5
Hulk / 10-16-2003 / 5.5
Winged Migration / 6-28-2003 / 5.5
Cube 2: Hypercube / 2-12-2003 / 5
Dreamcatcher / 9-25-2003 / 5
The Slaughter Rule / 4-27-2003 / 5

Anger Management / 8-16-2003 / 4.5
Final Destination 2 / 8-2-2003 / 4
Old School / 5-31-2003 / 4

Hollywood Homicide / 10-7-2003 / 3.5
Scorched / 7-6-2003 / 3.5
The Core / 10-15-2003 / 3

Bringing Down the House / 7-12-2003 / 2.5
The Guru / 5-3-2003 / 2.5

Darkness Falls / 5-20-2003 / 1.5

Just Married
4.5 of 10
I got a lot of laughs out of it, especially from Kutcher. It missed many opportunities to go beyond and it painfully maintains a connection to sentimentality that it should probably just abandon in favor of all out comedy, but its nice to see some of the goofy moments in the film.

More blah than offensively bad (though there are a couple of moments).

I added Irreversible, which was really an amazing movie. I'm not sure if I'd ever want to see it again, and I'm not completely sure I liked it, but it's still an amazing film. 9/10.

And then I saw Scorched, which opens in the US at the end of July. It doesn't really work as a comedy, since almost all the attempted humor falls flat. Parts of the movie worked, but most of it didn't. 3.5/10.

Updated with the wholly awful Legally Blonde 2, a sequel that seems intent on destroying all positive vibes from the amusing first chapter. Rare is the comedy that cannot elicit ONE laugh from me.

Also my favorite big-budget flick of the year so far:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

Yes I was a naysayer. Pleased to admit I was wrong, as I really enjoyed this flick from top to bottom.

Updated with a couple sequels, neither of which equals their original, but are still enjoyable:

Terminator 3 isn't the type of eye-opener that its predecessors were, but it is a worthy entry into the series, with a truly spectacular scene of vehicular mayhem and a great ending I didn't see coming. ¼

Charlie's Angels 2 has its moments, and I'm somewhat in awe of how willing Cameron Diaz remains to look like a complete fool if that's what it takes to get a laugh from the audience. Demi Moore just doesn't bring the same amount of energy as the rest of the cast, though, and much of the end is loud without being very exciting. ¾

(Also, any movie that includes John Cleese but only gives him a few confused reaction shots is, well, wasteful)

Updated with My Little Eye (****/*****).

I went to the store today to pick up Phone Booth, and they had two copies of May (a film I've been dying to see since my post on the poster controversy awhile back) out a week early! Naturally, I snagged one up, and the film was just amazing! Anyways, I've updated my list with it.

Updated with Winged Migration.

~Edwin

I've updated with 28 Days Later, an excellent film that surprised me a lot. It's a Lord of the Flies for adults--the beast is real this time--the real enemy is the savagery of humanity, the lightning quick way that man can go from civilized to a talking version of the 'monsters' they're fighting.

Added Whale Rider (with review), which I didn't think too highly of.

Updated with Gore Verbinski's Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl.

~Edwin

Added Pirates - 8.5 of 10
and
League - 6.5 of 10

Reviews in official review threads.

Updated with Pirates of the Caribbean (****½/*****).