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2002 Film List - Page 10

post #271 of 419
4/5/03 at 12:22am
Emperor's New Clothes - See Seth's post and add the film is glacially paced. After about the first 20-30m there isn't a single compelling thing that happens. About the only real positive thing is the excellent score. Too bad it was wasted on this movie. C
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post #272 of 419
4/6/03 at 9:34am
Updated with a handful of titles:

Frida
Morvern Callar
Possession

and a German flick entitled What To Do in Case of Fire.
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post #273 of 419
4/7/03 at 8:23am
Updated with Below. While not David Twohy's best movie, it's certainly good enough that I wish I'd had a chance to see it in a theater.
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post #274 of 419
4/7/03 at 8:53am
Time to get caught up on some updates after a self-imposed 5-week long posting hiatus in this thread and elsewhere. Besides, the human interest stories coming out of another part of the world lately is far more interesting than just about anything else these days.

Having said that though Tim Blake Nelson’s The Grey Zone is a film that is definitely worth a look. It chronicles the only real-life prisoner uprising in 1944 at Auschwitz. Still, I found The Pianist to be the better Holocaust film overall in 2002.

~Edwin
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post #275 of 419
4/8/03 at 11:32am
Updated with Phillip Noyce's The Quiet American.

~Edwin
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post #276 of 419
4/9/03 at 11:32am
I mostly liked The Man From Elysian Fields with its interesting characters, tragic emotional story, and humor but I wish the director and/or writer had resisted various cinematic cliches like going handheld for emotional fireworks or the good 'ol "trash the room to show I'm frustrated and pissed". The last 20m or so is also a letdown where the viewers and main character are let off the hook to a certain extent. B-
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post #277 of 419
4/9/03 at 2:01pm
Betty Thomas' I Spy - a spoof of the more successful spy films of recent years comes up short, very short on creativity, originality, humor, and just about everything else. Neither Eddie Murphy nor Owen Wilson can save this one from the get go.

Betty Thomas' track record as a feature film director has not been very good. Maybe, it's time for a self re-evaluation, if she hasn't already done so.

~Edwin
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post #278 of 419
4/11/03 at 10:31am
Mike Leigh, who usually champions the British working middle class, is back with another family drama in All Or Nothing.

It is a well-acted film but, unfortunately, quickly slides into the “been there, done that” category. The story is fairly routine as the conditions are quite predominant among the working class. In addition, the themes here have been tackled before by other directors with much better results.

~Edwin
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post #279 of 419
4/11/03 at 5:48pm
Updated my list with:

8 Mile (*** / ****)

One Hour Photo (*** / ****)

Roger Dodger (*** / ****)

Three solid films with one (Roger Dodger) rising above the rest. I finally get to see Spirited Away this Tuesday too.

Lowell
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post #280 of 419
4/13/03 at 6:47am
Maid in Manhattan - If you thought Sweet Home Alabama was bad, wait 'til you see this one.

Suddenly my wife has a craving for romantic comedies when she basically disliked them before. She's already asking me about Two Weeks Notice. Hopefully, the rest of them wouldn't be as empty as this one.

~Edwin
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post #281 of 419
4/13/03 at 2:26pm
Jason, you can now delete this post. Thank you.
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post #282 of 419
4/13/03 at 2:28pm
Jason, you can now delete this post. Thank you.
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post #283 of 419
4/13/03 at 9:27pm
Welcome To Collinwood - A lot of really good talent including William H. Macy, Sam Rockwell, Michael Jeter, Patricia Clarkson and Luiz Guzman, among others, who are given very little to do in a script that really doesn't go anywhere.

~Edwin
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post #284 of 419
4/14/03 at 8:49am
I've updated my list with the decent drama Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, 80%.
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post #285 of 419
4/15/03 at 11:25am
Added 24 Hour Party People. I really liked the setup, structure, and "wink-wink" narration but I was much less interested in the story than I thought I would be going in. At times interesting, at times quite funny, but by the hour mark I was bored and had no emotional investment. B-
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post #286 of 419
4/17/03 at 11:50am
Added Spider B

and One Hour Photo - Liked it, nice bit of tension, creepiness, and doesn't overstay it's welcome. Williams is fine. I'm getting awfully tired of films that create worlds that look like no humans actually live in them though - stores and homes cleaner than hospital operating rooms packed to the gills with all the latest gadgets and product placements. Also wish it didn't have the beginning coda so that you know the outcome of the film the whole way through. B-
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post #287 of 419
4/17/03 at 1:24pm
Updated my list with:

Secretary (*** / ****)

Sunshine State (*** / ****)

And my new #1 film of the year,

Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) (**** / ****) (Subtitled Version)

Not much else can be said about Spirited Away that hasn't already been said. It's a work of total genious. It's inventive, funny, and absolutely gorgeous to look at. A masterpiece.

Lowell
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post #288 of 419
4/17/03 at 7:01pm
Julio Medem’s Sex and Lucia – contains some gratuitous nudity and a storyline that feels more deliberate and planned rather than one of spontaneity and happenstance. Quite disappointing.

~Edwin
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post #289 of 419
4/19/03 at 8:28pm
My ratings on four of the five Oscar nominated Live Action Shorts:

Oscar winner This Charming Man aka DER ER EN YNDIG MAND - When Lars Hansen's identity number is confused with that of an immigrant named El Hassan, Lars finds himself enrolled in a Danish class taught by a young woman he used to tease when they were students together. (out of four)

Fait d’Hiver aka GridLock - On his way home from work one evening, a young man finds himself stuck in a traffic jam and decides to call his wife from his new cell phone.

I’ll Wait For the Next One aka J'ATTENDRAI LE SUIVANT - One day, in a Lyon subway, a twenty-nine-year-old man makes an unconventional attempt to find a single woman.

Inja aka Dog - On a South African farm during the apartheid years, a white landowner makes a brutal effort to sever the ties between a black boy and a puppy.

Next Up: The Oscar nominated Animated Shorts.


~Edwin

Note: Program descriptions provided by Apollo Cinema.
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post #290 of 419
4/21/03 at 5:49am
Updated with the five Oscar nominated Animated Shorts. The ratings are based on this criteria: 60% animation, 35% content and 5% delivery:

1. Oscar winner The Chubb Chubbs - introduces the inhabitants of the planet Glorf, including Meeper, its earnest by oh so awkward hero, the singing Diva, the ZyZaks and the ChubbChubbs. (out of four)

2. The Cathedral aka Katreda- A pilgrim arrives at a strange, forest-like cathedral and finds his presence there has a purpose he has not anticipated. The best of this bunch.

3. Das Rad aka Rocks - Two rocks, Hew and Kew, stand on the hilltop they have occupied for centuries, discussing the frantic activities of the human beings below them.

4. Mike’s New Car - Mike has purchased a new sports car and wants to take his friend Sulley for a spin.

5. Mt. Head aka Atama Yama - A stingy man eats some cherry seeds and finds that a cherry tree has grown from his head.

Program descriptions provided by Apollo Cinema.

~Edwin
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post #291 of 419
4/22/03 at 10:04am
I liked Sex And Lucia very much. A moving story about people who have experienced loss coming to terms with their grief and tragedy. Also stylistically impressive, it does become a bit structurally muddled at times but this doesn't affect the primary characters or theme. The film is certainly sexy and explicit, but there's a great deal more to it than an exploitative flesh show like Baise-Moi. The quality of acting and the music complete the package of this fine film. I would like to see this again and also watch some of Medem's earlier films. B+
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post #292 of 419
4/22/03 at 8:42pm
Updated with Charles Stone III’s Drumline - Makes the subject of marching bands worth a look and at times, even engaging, but it still does not hide the nervousness of its main lead, Nick Cannon, or the fact the he cannot act.

~Edwin
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post #293 of 419
4/24/03 at 2:01pm
Updated with The Wild Thornberrys Movie – a surprisingly good animated feature for kids that teaches some lessons about the environment and wildlife.

The music by Paul Simon and others is low-key and very effective. While the film is not devoid of bathroom humor, it does not dwell on it either. Fun entertainment for the entire family.

~Edwin
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post #294 of 419
4/26/03 at 6:59am
Updated with Chris Eyre’s Skins – a film dealing with the plight of the Native Americans living in South Dakota.

While its heart is at the right place, Eyre is challenged in that the film lacks compassion and conviction to draw action towards its delicate subject matter.

~Edwin
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post #295 of 419
4/27/03 at 3:57pm
Updated with Paul Justman's Standing In The Shadows Of Motown.

~Edwin
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post #296 of 419
4/29/03 at 9:13pm
Updated with Henry Bean's The Believer.

~Edwin
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post #297 of 419
5/1/03 at 6:23pm
Updated with Two Weeks Notice. Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant puts a new spin on the ‘ol boy meets girl who have different interests but somehow end up falling in love with each other.

When it’s all over though, it still feels like more of the same old thing. Nevertheless, I found it slightly better than Sweet Home Alabama and Maid In Manhattan.

~Edwin
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post #298 of 419
5/3/03 at 5:49pm
Updated with Peter Kosminsky's White Oleander, which charts the relationship between a young girl, beautifully played by Alison Lohman, and her manipulative mother (Michelle Pfeiffer).

While Pfeiffer's performance was good, in my view, it really wasn't at the level of an Academy Award nomination as the studio was touting it to be during the "For Your Consideration" period leading up to the Oscar nominations.

~Edwin
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post #299 of 419
5/6/03 at 10:51pm
Seems like you're about 2 weeks ahead of my Netflix list Edwin, I've got a bunch of these lined up.

The Bourne Identity - killer car chase and zippy action with a healthy amount of tension and good staging by director Doug Liman. Damon and Franka Potente deliver good performances and one of my favs, Chris Cooper, gets to have fun with a bad guy. I don't often watch movies that push my sound system, but Bourne has an outstanding soundtrack with all sorts of directional effects, explosions, cool bullet sounds, etc. A fun night at the home theater. B

The Grey Zone and Igby Goes Down are up next.
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post #300 of 419
5/7/03 at 8:53am
I don't want to let Edwin have all the "catch up" fun, so here are three I just watched finally.

Treasure Planet
7.5 of 10
That might be too high for this film, but it did have great animation and Martin Short was very funny to me. However, most of the time I was thinking "why didn't they just do the original version of the story instead, we all love pirates". The fart alien was utterly stupid. There was a time when Disney could write for kids without having kids write the jokes.

AutoFocus
6.5 of 10
There is nothing inherently wrong with this film, it just doesn't ever really have any intensity. I couldn't decide if it was the script or the direction that was just "blah" here, but something was. I could see some of the themes and visual style that they were trying to get across, they just didn't do it well enough to capture my interest despite having an interesting story to tell.

Country Bears
3 of 10
The biggest offense this film makes is that it follows the formulas so close you can hear them filling in the blanks as it goes along. There's just not enough fresh material here for them to get away that. Skip it and watch The Muppet Movie and Blue Brothers again instead.
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