2001: Movies Sorted By Tier
Submitted by stooky on Wed, 06/02/2004 - 01:03
Tags:
- Great
- Amelie
- Gosford Park
- Happy Times
- **I have seldom seen a film of bravora filmmaking in a fluffy feelgood package and Happy Times is an excellent example of that rare breed. Zhao is a chubby chaser in his 50's, unemployed and growing an unflattering pot belly. Yet he's intent on marrying a portly woman he starts a conversation with, strangely enough she wants to marry too. The catch being she wants an expensive marriage and a man with a lot of money. Gifted with bull-crap Zhao developes a complicated story involving hotel ownership which lands him with her blind step-daughter of an absent ex-husband. Too please his plump girlfriend he decides to employ her in his "hotel", a newly renovated bus located in a city park. The problem is the city counsel has decided to beautify this area and his little shack has hit the skids. As he seeks to explain his predicament without puncturing any of his various lies the plot takes an abrupt turn. As he tries to please the blind girl Zhao's forced to enlist a group of retirees in an elaborate masseur ruse. The slow, gentle humour of this movie is enchanting. Scene after scene of creative plotting and wonderful characters had me smiling. Dong Jie is wonderful as Wu Jing, a blind young girl who blossoms under the care of her less than honest tutors. The rest of the cast are equally fine, blessed with 3 dimensional characters, an intrigueing script and director Zhang Yimous trade-mark georgeous visual accuity. The film takes on a serious context as it enters the elegant closing scenes that perfectly frame the humanity at the center of the story. Climaxing in a marvelous scene involving a letter and a tape-recorded message that puts the bloated romanticism of films like Titanic to shame. The unerring ability to convey humanity is the film's ultimate triumph and remains what truly leaves a lasting impression in films anyway.
- Hedwig And The Angry Inch
- Millenium Actress
- **A dramatically complex adult anime movie about a director and trusty cameraman who interview an icon of Japenese film. Basically a visual tribute to 70 years of Japenese film-making that erupts into a fragmenting story of lost love and secret passions. Funny and enchanting, packed with ruthless stylistic conceits, Millenium Actress is truly a one-of-a-kind experience.
- Mullholland Drive
- Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
- Ocean’s Eleven
- Sexy Beast
- Shrek
- Waking Life
- Very Good
- Amores Perros
- Avalon
- **A highly original film that builds in layers into a mesmerizing whole by its ending. Avalon refers to a computer game that simulates war and is used as a source of fame and money for the best players. Given some time to get started this movie subtly captivates you. Plus, its got a wonderfully cute Bassett Hound in it too.
- A Beautiful Mind
- Black Hawk Down
- Brotherhood Of The Wolf
- ** Diverse movie styles meet in a bar, get drunk, copulate and create a convoluted mutant child. A studly taxidermist and his kung-fu fighting Indian side-kick help a dashing Marquis rid the land of a fiendish monster. Meanwhilst court intrigue abounds and our dashing hero courts 2 ladies at the same time. What saves an obviously incoherent movie and is responsible for its eventual very goodness is the teamwork involved in the filmmaking. Everyone plays the ludicrous story with such ingenuous gusto that you get sucked in. What will happen next? Will the monster get them? What the hell is going on and do the characters even know? Why is this movie so darn long and why am I enjoying the totally pointless scenes? Is that arm extremely gross?
- The Devil’s Backbone
- Donnie Darko
- Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone
- In The Bedroom
- Jeepers Creepers
- Kippur
- **And unusual war saga beginning and ending with two highly stylized, extraordinary love scenes involving paint. They seem to seperate the peace time in Israel to a country at war. Between these bookends is a harrowing film chronicling the confusion and death that follows in the wake of war. The film is seperated into seperate scenes, each one dealing with a seperate event. The progression begins with two young men anxious to do their part in a military crusade as they drive through traffic jams trying to reach the front. Director Amos Gitai adeptly gives these scenes a mildly comical quality that gets slowly sapped away as the first sounds of a confrontation can be heard. Slowly the film takes on darker shades of realism, starkly contrasting any other film I've ever seen on the subject. Replacing gruesome carnage and heroic plunges into enemy territory are scenes of the daily torment. In an epochral scene four men struggle to carry a wounded soldier across a mud-soaked field. It has been raining and an advancing tank unit has ripped the field into a series of muddy fissures. They struggle through pits in a horribly pitiful attempt to save one man. The camera stands stationary as these men struggle to advance 2 feet, becoming encased in head to toe mud. The brilliance of this moment is astonishing, laying waste to pompous hollywood agrandizing (Saving Private Ryan) and leaving only pitiless daily struggle under the shadow of constant danger. A visionary film.
- Lagaan
- Memento
- Monster’s Inc.
- Monster’s Ball
- Moulin Rouge
- No Man’s Land
- The Royal Tenenbaums
- Spy Kids
- Startup.com
- Time Out
- The Widow Of St. Pierre
- With A Friend Like Harry
- Good
- Band Of Brothers (TV Miniseries)
- The Caveman’s Valentine
- Chopper
- The Deep End
- From Hell
- Ginger Snaps
- Happy Accidents
- Hearts In Atlantis
- Heist
- Iron Monkey
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
- Lantana
- Legally Blonde
- The Others
- The Pledge
- Pootie Tang
- The Score
- The Tailor Of Panama
- Zoolander
- Guilty Pleasures
- Evolution
- Hannibal
- Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
- Average
- A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
- The Anniversary Party
- Behind Enemy Lines
- Brother
- Bubble Boy
- The Crimson Rivers
- Bridget Jones’s Diary
- Enemy At The Gates
- Life As A House
- My First Mister
- One Night At McCool’s
- Series 7: The Contenders
- Spy Game
- Tape
- Dissapointing
- Ali
- Along Came A Spider
- The Animal
- Bandits
- The Fast And The Furious
- The Glass House
- John Carpenter’s Ghosts Of Mars
- Josie And The Pussycats
- Jurassic Park 3
- Kate And Leopold
- Kiss Of The Dragon
- K-PAX
- The Mexican
- O
- The One
- Planet Of The Apes
- The Shipping News
- Sweet November
- Training Day
- Cellar Dwellers
- 15 Minutes
- 3000 Miles To Graceland
- Antitrust
- Bones
- Double Team
- The Forsaken
- I Am Sam
- Joe Dirt
- Joy Ride
- The Mummy Returns
- The Price Of Milk
- Session 9
- Swordfish
- Wet Hot American Summer
- The Big Stink
- 13 Ghosts
- Freddie Got Fingered
- The Million Dollar Hotel
- Pearl Harbor
- Shallow Hal
- Valentine
- Unfortunately Haven’t Seen
- Too Many To List
Cloned From:
My, that's a very high rating for Ocean's Eleven. I liked it too, but not nearly that much. From what I know of your tastes, I'm kinda surprised to see it so high. What grabbed you so thoroughly?
Did you see the original? Are you looking forward to Ocean's Twelve?
1) I saw it in the theatre. Being a visual movie it made a huge difference in the impact. 2) It's fast paced, melodrama with no pretentions to being Citizen Kane or The Manchurian Candidate. Thank goodness. 3) it's a great remake of a shite movie. Good job Sode. 4) It's extremely entertaining without being light-weight. Movies this much fun should be cherrished, cus there aren't very many of 'em. 5) The star-wattage in this film is cranked up to 11 baby. 6) It's a series of equally marvelous scenes that sit along-side one another and feed off the others' intensity. The fact that it doesn't make that much sense is addressed 10 minutes in so you can just turn off your brain. 7) The stars give fab performances. Big. brash and fabulously over-blown. 8) Julia is a minor character. 9) George Clooney is the greatest movie star of his generation. 10) The music is great. 11) Great, super-sly ending. 12) It's very cool.
Crap original. Nope.
Tallyho
:?)
I feel a certain responsibility for your Brotherhood of the Wolf viewing, so I'm happy to see you liked it! My confidence went up a bit after I watched Bride with White Hair and had a greater sense that it would be up your alley. "Convoluted mutant child" indeed. :-)
I just felt at home with the silliness. Thanks for the recommendation, I probably woundn't have ever watched this film if you hadn't brought it to my attention.
Tallyho
:?)
Hedwig...excellent.
It's only an inch, but it's darn angry. It's got a great soundtrack too.
Tallyho
:?)
Hannibal makes a fine guilty pleasure.
Say you love it, say you hate it, but don't say A.I. is average. Anything but.
Indeed. The apex being Anthony licking the steering wheel. Oh goodness.
I say it's...average. I liked certain parts, didn't like others and found myself feeling so-so about it.
T'ho
:?)
Joe Dirt & Joy Ride Cellar Dwellers..dang! i love those movies! explain your reasoning Mr.Stook.
Joe Dirt was really unfunny, in my opinion anyway, but...brace yourself...I'm not a big David Spade fan which could explain my dislike. I fell asleep 20 minutes in, rewound to see what I missed and found out I'd missed nothing important and I was asleep for 30 minutes. Yikes.
Joy Ride was just not nasty enough and too dumb for my liking, and the ending is awful not to mention predictable. But why did it rate the Cellar Dweller rating? Because the first 30 minutes were pretty darn good and then it got waylaid by crappy acting, direction and scripting. No one wastes a good premise and misses getting the proverbial stooky fart of approval (notice the amount of anus euphemisms). Plus it's a pale rip-off of Jeepers Creepers, an excellent and truly frightening modern horror film.
T'ho
:?)
oh ok. well i'm a huge fan of david spade so thats why i was suprised. glad too see ''Sexy Beast'' in The Great pile, an amazing movie, the best british movie i know (and i'm british :)
Yeah, I understand the love for DavSpa, but what about Joy Ride? Have I swayed you in the other direction?
T'ho
:?)
though your arguement good it may be , has not discouraged me from Joy Ride. i just liked it. i think ofr me it was the comedy and how the intense moments still worked, it all fits well. plus i think that steve zahn is vey funny in his movies, and although this by genre was a ''(Light) thriller'' his acting added some grat comedy. i liked the pace of the movie, it kept me watching all the way through. its like when i saw ''The Graduate'' i still love the pallbearer and too top that i think the pallbearer is better.
hey mate, i'm finding it hard getting copy of "Philadelphia Story, The" because i just finished with the internet rental company i was with and now i go to log onto blockbuster.co.uk annd they dont have it in their listing! so today i tryed to buy it from the shops but failed, so i'm going to go back to the old company i was with. so bare with me :)
No rush on Philidelphia Story. You can't get it faster than you can get it, now can you. :?)