2003: Movies Sorted By Tier
Submitted by stooky on Wed, 06/02/2004 - 03:49
Tags:
- Great
- American Splendor
- The Barbarian Invasions
- **I realized fairly quick that this was a sequel of sorts to the stunning The Decline Of The American Empire. This film shares the same cynical satire and subtle humor, but contains something new, a sense of compassion for people brought about by experience. The director seems enthralled with his characters, the way their lives have shifted, revelling in their strengths and faults. A successful son is contacted by his mother, she begs him to come home and comfort his dying father. Though hesitant he makes the journey with his loving wife. He is plunged directly into a maelstrom of problems and sets to making his fathers last days as comfortable as possible. But the film is far more complicated than a simple story synopsis, the director has created a living, breathing document. The Barbarian Invasions is a stunningly beautiful film brimming with enough humour and insight to restore your faith in humanity.
- Big Fish
- **A hugely entertaining film that mingles innocence and experience with daring aplomb. Probably best explained as a visual poem to storytelling and the richness of life Big Fish tells the tale of a son coming to terms with his quixotic father through the incredible stories of his youth. Ewan McGregor gives his finest performance as Edward Bloom, a skilled and heroic character bursting with joy and intensity. A beautifully shot and charming film that succeeds in creating a sense of wonder with every scene.
- City Of God
- Finding Nemo
- The Good Thief
- Kill Bill: Vol. 1
- Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King
- Lost In Translation
- The Magdalene Sisters
- The Man On The Train
- Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World
- The Station Agent
- **A sweet, slow moving tale chronicling the tentative friendship of three people isolated by various events. The film is marred slightly by a tempestuous 2nd act that contradicts the glorious first hour. An elegant film that bristles with intelligence and an abundance of humor.
- Step Into Liquid
- **The best surfing documentary, period. A vibrant and amazingly entertaining tour through the art and sub-culture of surfing. I am so stoked I think I'll by a board and surf the ripples on Lac La Hache lake. Dude.
- The Triplets of Belleville
- Very Good
- 21 Grams
- 28 Days Later
- All The Real Girls
- **An unusual film that portrays people with an effortless simplicity that is very charming. A story of young love that is more about learning how to live. The subtlety of film-making creates a great emotional quality that is refreshing.
- Bend It Like Beckham
- Bubba Ho-Tep
- **Casually brilliant comedy that gains great mileage from Bruce Campbell's inspired performance. Elvis, having switched identities is now living out life in a nursing home, learns that a soul-sucking mummy is sucking souls from various wrinkly orafaces. Short, consice and always charming Bubba Ho-Tep if the funnest movie I've seen in quite a while.
- Capturing The Friedmans
- Cold Mountain
- **Well put a bonnet on me and call me Shirley, it's a really good movie. Truly a melodramatic opus of grand proportions. The cinematography is is astounding in beauty and ingenuity. The opening battle is a great cinematic scene, gruesome and enigmatic. It falters in several scenes that contain simple 2-dimensional characters and garish direction. Yet the leads carry the film to the heights of great cinematic melodrama, especially Rene Zelwegger who gives an exceptional, unique performance. I'm pretty sure the film is great because of all the small technical aspects that create endless beautiful shots, combined with Minghella's ellegant storytelling.
- Cowboy Bebop
- The Cuckoo
- Dirty Pretty Things
- Holes
- Love Actually
- Monster
- **A truly sad film about a woman whose life of vitimization finally explodes into violence. Charlize Tharon gives a magnetic, intense performance that is incredible. She plunges into character with such intense devotion the performance astonishes. I wasn't entirley sure a dramatic movie could fulfill the essence of the story. Yet with Theron's performance the movie attaches personal emotions to a strange story. Therefore the film works far better as a entrance to a deeply disturbed private life than a crime thriller. In that way Monster recreates a tabloid story with a deeply needed emotional resonance. I'd like to hear Bertie's comments on this film.
- Mystic River
- Nowhere In Africa
- Open Range
- Rasing Victor Vargas
- **If I would've known how fun this movie was I woulda watched it a long time ago. The sweetest coming of age tale I've seen in years. Definately worth all the hype. Reaffirms my hopes for humanity, at least for a couple of days.
- The School Of Rock
- Shattered Glass
- Spellbound
- Swimming Pool
- Whale Rider
- Winged Migration
- X2: X-Men United
- Good
- Bad Santa
- **A truly revolting film about a ass-f**kin' lovin', drinkin', smokin', swearin' human disaster who dons a Santa suit to rob retail stores on Christmas and his lippy disturbed midget partner in crime. Somehow I started laughing, a tentative horrified laugh, and I couldn't stop myself. When the manager (a marvelous John Ritter) explains what he heard in the heavy-woman section to a careless security chief (Bernie Mac), it's priceless. This stuff is funny, and not for any of the conscionable or politically correct reason. This is a horrific film, the true heir to Pink Flamingoes.
- Cabin Fever
- The Company
- **Suprisingly unaffecting study of ballet that doesn't have enough zip to be great. Plenty of interesting scenes most including Malcolm McDowell's obnoxious performance and Neve Campbell who is georgeous (she also helped write the story). Frankly, I expected a better film.
- The Dancer Upstairs
- Elephant
- The Fog Of War
- Freaky Friday
- Girl With A Pearl Earring
- Gothika
- **A heck of a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be. Halle Berry's good, the story's predictable but tries hard and the editing is superb. It gets by on an ability to create tension and claustrophobia totally through the use of jump-cutting from angle to angle. It's really quite impressive. And Robert Downey Jr. is always a plus. I had fun.
- In America
- Lost In Lamancha
- **A discomforting look at a film falling apart. Both fantastically unlucky and blindly confident the project seems doomed from the start. It makes you wonder how any movie can possibly get made and gives you a healthy respect for film-makers in general.
- The Man Without A Past
- A Mighty Wind
- Old School
- Once Upon A Time In Mexico
- Pieces Of April
- Pirates Of The Caribbean
- Ripley's Game
- **John Malkovich is delicious as Tom Ripley and he has a competent foil in Dougray Scott. Yet the film is so tentative it only reaches it's potential in a select few scenes. Still the film is well made and and has a certain amount of sly charm.
- The Rundown
- Seabiscuit
- Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines
- Thirteen
- **Intense life of teenage train-wreck. Almost unbearably intense story of a girl falling in with the wrong crowd. The much needed injection of realism definately helps this genre. The way the color is slowly blanched from the film creates an clastrophobic quality is a nice touch. Good, sturdy film-making with a morality aftertaste. Probably a good film to watch with your nascent teenagers.
- Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks
- **Disc 1 (Live D & Episodes): Their silly and entertaining HBO program is here for all to see. Each episode chronicling the pressures and slightly homo-erotic tales of their friendship. The funniest episode being their kung-fu fight for a devil-worshiping clogger who dresses like she's a angry Norwegian bar-hostess. Bad karate ensues and so do the laughs. The live D is variably interesting compendium of live shows that show their virsatility or lack there-of considering your outlook. Disc 2 (Videos & Filler): A lot of useless TD info is here, touring and studio info. Videos and the making of the videos plus the extra special nugget that is F**k Her Gently, a semi-pornographic animated video that puts the "butt" in butter (whatever that means). This is all a warm up for the short films, three truly insame 5-minute masterpieces. This is some badass funk right here. 1: JB BJ is about (you guessed it) Jack propositioning men in the man-whore business. He's picked up by a "weird" guy and they go to an underground garage. This is twisted stuff. 2: Rock-Star Sperm is about just what the title suggests and is "full" of some farcical sperm jokes. 3: Butt Baby is the Casablanca of gross-out shorts. Jack & Kyle are out in the desert trying to feel the afteraffects of "a tabbed acidic substance", or as Jack puts it "We're gonna ride the snake to Valhalla!" Jack trips out and Kyle is only left to wonder why since they're actually trying to trip on "home pregnancy tests". From that point things get truly revolting. You can thank Lyam Lynch for these nuggets of Tenacious glory.
- Tibet-Cry Of The Snow Lion
- Guilty Pleasures
- Underworld
- Average
- The Hulk
- Identity
- Kangaroo Jack
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider- The Cradle Of Life
- The Last Samurai
- Matchstick Men
- The Matrix Reloaded
- The Order
- Secondhand Lions
- Something’s Gotta Give
- Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones
- **George Lucas is now officially a card carrying member of the "idiot brigade". Hayden Christensen (or however you spell it) is atrocious in this movie, worse than the little guy in Episode 1. In fact I was harkening back to the pleasures the little gomer brought to that story. He has the sex appeal of hole ridden underwear and the charisma of...actually he has no charisma. He's a terrible choice. The chemistry between him and his amoure is repulsive to watch and that kiss at the end is just creepy. I thought this kind of acting wouldn't be possible since Arnie became a senator. But back to the movie, it has a burdensome first hour, a boring middle and a slightly interesting, visually stunning, dramatically flacid ending. Here's where you ask..."Well why's it in average then?" Two reasons, Ewan McGregor is a great Obi-Wan and Christopher Lee is fantastic. (In fact the minor players seem to be the only ones having any fun. The leads act as if their complimentary sandwiches were laced with a laxative and they can't wait to get the porta-pottie.) Is that enough to make it average...well probably not, but I'm willing to give it a boost just because its a Star Wars movie. Here's hoping George Lucas remembers how to direct sometime soon.
- Dissapointing
- The Core
- The Hunted
- I Capture The Castle
- Mona Lisa Smile
- Cellar Dwellers
- The Italian Job
- Jeepers Creepers II
- The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- The Big Stink
- Darkness Falls
- Dreamcatcher
- Freddy Vs. Jason
- House Of 1,000 Corpses
- The Matrix Revolutions
- Wrong Turn
- Unfortunately Haven’t Seen
- Dracula: Pages From A Virgin Diary
- House Of Sand And Fog
- My Architect
- Owning Mahowny
- A Woman Is A Woman
Cloned From:
Glad to see someone else who liked KILL BILL.Vol1
why do you think it got bad reviews?
My personal opinion on this subject is:
1. Kill Bill Vol. 1 is a movie for movie fanatics, people who seek out Sonny Chiba movies just because Quentin loves them. People who seek influential or daring cinema just to understand why these films are made. These movies are not an escape as much as a rabbit hole into film. Lurking inside them are references to earlier films (such as Uma's Bruce Lee inspired suit or subtle visual cues to Zatoichi and Kurosawa samurai masterpieces among others) through a directors perceptions.
The movie has no intrinsique value for the average viewer looking for deeper insights. It's simply a magnificent samurai flick celebrating a history of great samurai flicks.
2. It's extremely violent. Not to say that it's more blatantly violent than Lethal Weapon or the latest Stephen Segal film, but it's more vicerally real. A suburban house is an easier location for people to relate to than a miscellaneous park or a highway. Furniture is broken, nick-nacks bite it and finally a blaringly loud gun-shot rips through a cereal box of all things. It's unexpected and grabs people by the short and curlies. Kiddo's talk with the dead woman's daughter in a blood spattered kitchen only enforces the shock. It's as if Quentin is saying "there is no escape here, you're mine for the next 2 hours." People get very silent when they watch this film.
3. It's a film about revenge that has no hero bent catharsis (like being kidnapped and beat up) to aleviate the tension. She simply slices her way through her enemies on her way to Bill. She's pissed off and she's kicking mucho ass. People want a hero they can identify with, but the bride is a cold, hard, ruthless woman making The Man With No Name seem sissy. But you cannot be an idle participant either because you are constantly being reminded to pay attention with gruelling sound affects and bitter flash-backs. You have to take her side or get the hell out of the theatre. I think people like the subtle manipulations of hollywood and are unused to manipulation by force.
4. And last but not least, here's this beautiful, dainty woman giving Toshiro Mifune a run for his money. Uma is incredible (Why no oscar? because oscar voters are p*****s), but she's a woman. Although women's rights have come a long way people are still not ready for a heroine this believeable. She's freakin' scary, and in this movie she's not the only one.
I love the movie for all these reasons, but it's a door that swings both ways.
What's your opinion?
Tallyho
:?)
wow great answer
well i agree with all your reasons.
Also i was thinking that because this shares the factors (and well is) a Samuri movie that may work against it. now not Since 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' has there been this kind of movie that has swept the board at the oscars, and the general going public may not be familar with the smauri movies because of the lack of coverage it gets. so thats a factor that could have caused is harsh reviews.
Also though Tarantinos movies are violent there not usaly this blatantly violent. which makes the film (in oscar standerds) less appealing.
I Myself thought it was great, the fighting scenes were brill. but i could see where it would get Unfairly reviewed on commented on.
personaly it rates as one of my fave tarantino movies.
i think that oscar pannels and voters should lighten up, and widen their range!
An interesting point, America is the land of the western (which by the 60's was a form of generified samurai movie) and could well be unused to the genre.
I totally agree, they need to widen their range, which apparently is happening as I type since a new "Youthful" element is being introduced to the Oscar voting block. Let's hope it works.
Tallyho
:?)
Mr.Stook you crazy man!
pieces of april..only good? katie holmes alone should push it to great! ummmmm
bb
Good to see Big Fish is good to see. On my to see list.
Surprised you didn't mention Tarantino's fascinating choice of music in KBv1. A major plus for me. (Something plotwise bothered me Seemed to me highly unlikely The Bride would still be driving Pussy Wagon after she came back from Japan
I usually hate to see my favorite comedians go serious, but I have to admit Bill Murray was great in Lost in Translation.
28DL wasn't much more than another Night of the Living Dead clone for me.
Haven't seen Monster. Will get back to you.
I suppose if you tumbled early to what was really going on in Identity then it could seem average. At least it was unusual.
The Core's apples with me. [Oh, 'apples with me' is Aussie slang meaning fine with me.]
Dreamcatcher is indeed essence of stink. And I have to sheet a lot of it home to King - I couldn't get into his novel either.
Well, Bill wasn't his usual constantly sardonic self in "Lost in Translation", but I still thought his performance was often subtly hilarious. When he's shooting the commercial, when the hooker's in his room, etc. Funny stuff. I thought his performances in Wes Anderson's films are more serious than in "Lost in Translation."
Oh, and thank you for disliking "28 Days Later"!
Big Fish is a love it or hate it affair, more for the romanticists.
You're so right about the music, Quentin has a knack for using the right music in the right moments. Considering the music-video-like tone of the movie it's probably most important in this film. good'un. That is true, why still drive the the "Cat-mobile", definately used for continuity and not plausibility.
Bill Murray is amazing and I have to agree with AJ about the comedy. The scene in which he wrestles the prostitute is probably the funniest moment in a 2003 film.
That was exactly it, I'd figured it out pretty early and then just had to wait for the characters to catch up. Plus, that ending was just horrible, what's the point? Magnold hasn't hit his stride yet. Definately needs time to mature as a director, he needs to get over using pointless explanatory scenes and tighten up his story-telling. Luckily, many of the best directors had the same problems at the beginning of their careers.
Apples with me <---great slang
Jim loves it too, I wanted more, or less considering the running time.
Anytime anyone asks, I always say the same thing: "Any movie with aliens exploding from characters' rectums just ain't gonna be good."
hmmmmmm...The Rectum Router, The Arse Annihilator.
T'ho
:?)
Stooky, I've watched MONSTER. My comments are here .