Movies seen in 2003
Submitted by spoky on Sat, 01/04/2003 - 09:35
Tags:
- January
- Ocean's Eleven : This was an unplanned for re-watch we went down to my wife's parents house for New Year's dinner and when we got there they were watching this movie. I missed the first fifteen or twenty minutes and conversation was spattered over top the movie dialogue and supper was being prepared and commented upon throughout its duration. But despite the distractions the movie was watched and enjoyed. It might have bothered me if I hadn't already seen it but as it was I didn't really mind.
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood : My wife's sister suggested this one to us saying that it was one of the best movies she had seen in a very long time. We both enjoyed it but found that it seemed to drag a bit near the middle, maybe just a little to slow paced for its length. I wouldn't say that it was near the best I have seen but good none the less.
- 13 Conversations About One Thing : We were supposed to get our DVD play the night that we got this one, but the truck was late and would be in the next day. So this movie gets have the distinction of being the last movie rented on VHS. We may have reasons in the future to rent a VHS tape but if the DVD is available I am sure we will be willing to wait for it. This was a very good movie a little bit jumpy between story lines but I think they wrapped it up nicely in the end.
- XXX : This was our first DVD (really our second, we saw Proof of Life with some friends a year or so ago on their DVD player, but this is our first on our player) and what a fun movie it was. This was definitely the best cheesy action flick I have seen in quite a while. We didn't bother with all of the DVD extras such as the director's commentary and the music video but we did watch the deleted scenes and a couple of the special effects features. Very fun! A good starter for our new DVD life.
- Italian For Beginners : What immediately struck me with this movie was the way it looked. It looked very much like it was done with a digital video camera. I am not sure if it is because it was on DVD that I noticed this or if the same effect would have happened on cassette, but it was almost distracting at first until I got used to it. I didn't notice the same thing with XXX but that may be because it most likely started on film. Anyway the movie is very good, I enjoyed it quite a bit. We are still getting used to how the whole DVD thing works though; two or three times when we went to rewind to catch some subtitles that slipped by a bit two fast we accidental restarted the movie. Annoying? maybe a little but we will learn to perfect it quickly I am sure.
- Bloodwork : This wasn't really all that good. I found it dull and uninteresting. I also thought the whole love interest subplot was entirely unnecessary and added nothing at all to film.
- Happy Accidents : This was a great movie. A very fun story and very well acted by both Tomei and D'Onofrio. I thought it was great that I never knew if Sam's story was true or false until the very end of movie, they set it up so I could easily see it go either way the entire length of the film.
- About a Boy : This was so very good! I think my wife and I loved every bit of it. We even went out the next day and bought the DVD and the soundtrack! I think I am going to have to hunt down some Nick Hornby books to add to my to read shelf. I loved both High Fidelity and About a Boy as movies and 90% of the time books are way better so I am sure I will love the books as well. Plus my sister said that she quite enjoys his stuff and she usually has good taste in this sort of thing.
- Birthday Girl : This was a pretty good black comedy. I enjoyed the story and chuckled enough to accept its comedy moniker. Too often things classified as black comedies just aren't funny at all. The most interesting thing about this film I discovered by watching the DVD extras. Apparently all three of the actors who played Russians in the movie didn't even know the language yet they spent most of their time speaking it. Now not knowing Russian myself I can not comment on the quality but they have surely impressed me on their acting abilities to be able to pull that off.
- Monsters Inc. : This is the first DVD of own that we watched, and it was good! Having seen the movie for the first time on the big screen may have taken away a little of the "oh my god that was so great" factor this time around but it is still an amazing movie and remains quite re-watchable. I haven't delved into all the features on the second DVD but I did watch the shorts and the outtakes. The shorts were very good but I must confess that I was disappointed with the outtakes for two reasons. First, aside from the Monsters Inc company play they were not that great. And second I felt gipped that the outtakes on disc 1 and disc 2 were exactly the same, probably because I was so disappointed with them in the first place.
- The Good Girl : This was a very good movie. Maybe a little slow in a few places but the story was interesting enough and the subtle humour throughout was enjoyable.
- Harrison's Flowers : This was an okay movie, not that great but still watchable. I seem to be liking it a little less with further reflection. It tried to show the horrors of war but didn't quite pull it off as well so other movies have. And I didn't really like the ending that much, it just didn't seem quite right.
- Ma femme est une actrice : I quite enjoyed this French comedy. It had lots of humourous moments and kept me entertained all the way through. It didn't really resolve anything in the end, but was fun enough that I didn't really care.
- February
- Igby goes down
- Sweet Home Alabama
- Lovely and Amazing
- Barbershop
- Daredevil
- Full Frontal
- Road to Perdition
- March
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding
- One Hour Photo
- Tadpole
- The Ring : I am usually not a big fan of the horror genre and tend not to watch them but I heard from many different sources that The Ring was a very good movie so I figured I would give it a shot. It is not what I would call a very good movie but it was a good one. I am glad I watched it, I probably will not see it again.
- 25th Hour
- Say Anything : I am not sure when exactly it happened but sometime in the early nineties John Cusack became my favourite actor and has remained in that exalted position to this day. One of the biggest reasons for this has to be Say Anything. I think that it is such a fabulous movie. I do not think that I could be capable of pulling off a top X favourite movies of all time list but if I could this one would be certain to worm its way into that list.
- Moonlight Mile
- Beauty and the Beast : I really can not believe that I got by as long as I did without seeing what is widely believed to be Disney's best animated feature. It is one of my wife's favourites. One of her roommates at university absolutely loved it and even had the video on hand so it is not like it was unaccessible. It is not like I am anti Disney like my university roommate is (not that really stopped him from watching Disney films). I guess I just never got around to seeing it. While that has changed and though it was good and I do not mind that we have a copy it did not really overly impress me. Maybe there was too much hype, or maybe seeing it after seeing movies such as Toy Story and Monsters Inc lessened its impact. It is a good movie but I must say I have fonder memories of things like the Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone, Fox and the Hound and Robin Hood that I saw when I was younger. Of course years of clouded memories maybe effecting my judgment here, it has been awhile since I watched those movies. Also I have watched each of those many times (especially Robin Hood, that was my sister's favourite when we were growing up) compared to the one time I have seen Beauty and the Beast.
- Monsters Inc
- The Great Muppet Caper (last 2/3's)
- The Count of Monte Cristo
- All or Nothing
- Auto Focus
- April
- Gladiator
- Maid in Manhattan
- Far From Heaven
- Knockaround Guys
- High Fidelity
- Roger Dodger
- Crush
- Spirited Away : This is an amazing film. While I agree with Jim that The Lion King/Toy Story cross over from traditional animation to cgi is a good demarcation that will probably have many people turning their noses up at the hand drawn animation in favour for the computer generated, this film should be an exception on just about everybody's list. The Japanese have long been known for outstanding animation (and I must admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed what little of it I have seen), and I believe it is widely held that Hayao Miyazaki is the best of them all. I think that I would have to agree. I have seen four of his movies now (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro) and Spirited Away is the best (but not by much).
- Enigma
- Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
- Human Nature
- Legally Blonde
- There's Something About Mary
- May
- Identity
- Legally Blonde
- Gross Pointe Blank : This is really fun movie. I think everyone involved did a great job in this one but I think the standout performance was Joan Cusack, in my opinion she stole every scene that she was in.
- Rabbit-Proof Fence
- Pumpkin
- American Pie
- Two Weeks Notice
- The Matrix Reloaded : I may be in the minority here based on other comments that I have seen, and my opinions may change upon viewing the original Matrix again, but I thought this was the better movie of the two. I felt that this movies attempt to give some history to the series succeeded quite well. Yes it was still filled with just as bad acting as the first one had, and no it didn't really improve that much on the effects that were the wow factor in the first one, but I do think that it managed to beef up the plot enough to make this one the better of the two films. I am interested to see how it will conclude in the third installment.
- The Emperor's Club
- Adaptation
- Drumline
- Finding Nemo
- Talk to Her
- June
- The Pianist
- Die Another Day : In this lasted installment of the James Bond series I have come to realize that things are not as fun as they used to be. I remember quite enjoying all of the James Bond movies when I was younger, I even liked the ones that most people thought were horrible such as MoonRaker or Man with the Golden Gun. I also remember being very disappointed when Remington Steele (Brosnan) couldn't get out of his contract and become the next Bond, so they went with Dalton instead. But I must admit that Remington Steele has not made very many good Bond films. It have more to do with my maturity as a film viewer or maybe the last few scripts have just been very bad, but I do not seem to be forming the fond memories of these newer movies that I associate with the older bond films. In this film it was definitely the dialog that turned me off. I do not think there was a single conversation between Bond and a female (with the exception of M) that wasn't filled with obvious and terribly awful sexual innuendo, I am not saying that this sort of sexual innuendo was not present in the older films but I believe for the most part it was either more subtle or less obvious to my younger ears of the time, this time I found it to be jarring and really contributed to ruining the movie.
- Love Liza
- Bend It Like Beckham
- About Schmidt
- Frida
- Old School
- Tears of the Sun
- Nueve reinas (Nine Queens) : It has been a while since I saw this so this review may be a little tough, but I guess that's the big flaw in my review by request method. I very much enjoyed this movie. I seem to remember the acting to be quite good, the story exciting and entertaining. Most importantly for movies like this the final twist caught me by surprise, unlike some movies with bizarre twists that come out of nowhere and seem to very contrived, this one felt very natural and fit into the rest of the story, even though it was unexpected (by me at least).
- The Hours
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- July
- Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, & Blonde
- How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
- Punch-Drunk Love : I quite enjoyed this movie. I was very surprised and impressed by Sandler's performance I would not have guessed that he had it in him. I think the whole movie hinged on his performance, if he slipped up even just a little I think the movie might of stumbled, but as it was he was great and so was the movie.
- August
- Phone Booth
- The Master of Disguise
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- Donnie Darko
- September
- Minority Report
- City of Angels
- Four Weddings and a Funeral
- Dancer in the Dark
- Ghost
- Pollock
- L.A. confidential
- GoodFellas
- Vanilla Sky : This was my second time watching this very good movie. I think I enjoyed it more the second time around. Now I would very much like to see Abre los ojos and see how they compare.
- Billy Elliot
- The Mask of Zorro
- October
- About a Boy
- Gladiator
- Say Anything
- The fugitive
- A Bug's Life
- Rashomon
- Out of Time
- Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
- The incredible adventures of Wallace & Gromit
- Gandhi
- K-19 the widowmaker.
- The rookie
- Shrek
- Kiki's Delivery Service : I have seen five of Miyazaki's movies now and I have very much enjoyed all of them, but I think this belongs on the bottom of that very exceptional list. Though a very good movie I felt that Kiki was geared toward a much younger audience then the other four movies of his I have seen.
- Lara Croft tomb raider.
- Happy times : Not the best movie by Zhang Yimou that I have seen, but I thought that it was very good. The relationship between Zhao and Wu Ying was well portrayed, and the humour seemed to translate very well which doesn't always happen. Of course if I was watching with a bunch of people who understood the language and the culture they might of been laughing in entirely different places then me, but with just my wife and I watching it seemed to translate very well indeed.
- Scarface
- November
- Very Bad Things
- Liberty Stands Still
- Sidewalks of New York
- Benny & Joon
- Trapped
- The Princess Bride
- The fox and the hound
- Shower
- My neighbor Totoro
- Erin Brockovich
- Emma
- Shakespeare in love
- The Godfather
- The Godfather: Part II
- The Godfather: Part III
- Artificial intelligence
- Out of sight : This was a rewatch of a movie that I remembered quite enjoying but didn't really remember anything about. It all came back to me as the movie progressed and it was still very enjoyable. I think it is my favourite of Soderbergh's movies. Clooney and Lopez had very believable chemistry and both turned in one of their better performances.
- The dish
- Braveheart
- The emperor and the assassin : Good, but not great. Not sure why I didn't enjoy it more perhaps some of the cultural/historical references didn't get through the translation. I thought the story was good and it was generally well acted, but for some reason I didn't get into it as much as I would have liked.
- December
- Gross Pointe Blank
- The Lion King
- Excalibur
- The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers
- Memento
- Space cowboys
- Real women have curves
- Entrapment
- Lawrence of Arabia
- George Washington : A good movie. I thought the kids did a better job acting in this then the adults ( and a much better job then kids generally do), but that was probably more due to the fact that they were the focus of the story.
- The mists of Avalon
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- Chicago
Author Comments:
Comments are on Hold for now but I will take requests and get to them as I can
Short list of movies that I am going to try and get comments for as soon as possible
Cloned From:
We have the same problems with our DVD player that you mention in your Italian for Beginners comments. Navigation wise, I've found it to be rather finicky (on some discs more than others). I've had problems where trying to rewind a little has jumped me to an entirely different scene. Another thing that happens occassionally is a brief pause between scenes as the player looks for the next track. Neither are a big deal, and they're fairly rare, but they happen frequently enough to note. Minor quibbles over a format I love. It's probably partially due to having a cheap player.
It looks like you've put reviews on hold for this list, but if you find the time I'd particularly like to hear what you thought of The Ring, Say Anything, Beauty and the Beast, Spirted Away, and Gross Pointe Blank.
I did say that I would take requests! I will see if I can get some time to get my thoughts down (maybe this weekend??). I do wish that I had more time to do this and my other lists properly, I enjoy the whole commented list experience so much more then the uncommented list, it just takes so much time.
Jim, I got two of your requests done. I did B&TB before Say Anything because I took a wild guess and figured that you would be more interested in that one. I will try to get a few more done tonight or tomorrow
Excellent! You were right; I was most looking forward to your B&tB comments. I think you're the second person that has indicated B&tB somewhat paling in comparison to the CGI animated movies (was bertie the other one?). It's an interesting trend (although one with a highly limited sample). Just as we now have many people that have a hard time getting into black & white live-action movies over new releases (myself included), I imagine we'll have the same phenomenon in animated movies, with 1994/1995 (The Lion King/Toy Story providing a nice crisp demarcation.
I am a bit surprised that you didn't think it fared well in comparison to Robin Hood and The Jungle Book though. I've re-watched most of the classics with my 5-year-old, and for me they just don't go the distance. But then again I didn't really have much nostalgia for the old Disney titles themselves. I have nostalgia for the memory of sitting down with my parents and a bowl of popcorn on Sundays for the weekly Disney TV program, but not so much for the titles themselves. However, I can certainly appreciate where nostalgia would tip the scales for you! Title-wise, the animated movie the most affected me as a child was Watership Down; a traumatic experience from which I've never really recovered. :-) I may have to get back on that horse some day.
I've love a Reloaded review, if you have the time. Thanks!
I will add it to the short list.
Thanks! In the meantime, I just read your Spirited Away review, and I'm psyched to see you think it's one of Miyazaki's best. I've heard nothing but raves for Spirited Away, but I've often wondered how it compares to his other movies, since he makes nothing but great stuff. Of his oeuvre, it seems like Spirited Away has gotten the lion's share of the attention, and I had to wonder if that was merely due to exposure, or because it was one of his better movies (or both).
Thanks for the Reloaded review! I'm psyched to hear that you liked it, despite the negative press here and elsewhere.
I think it's interesting that the effects have been a bit of a letdown (not only for you). The gist of what I'm hearing is that they are pretty good, but not the revelation the effects in the first movie were. Personally, I remember being surprised that The Matrix beat out The Phanton Menace for the F/X Oscar, and it wasn't until somebody explained them to me that I started to appreciate them (that conversation is around Listology somewhere). I suspect that the same is true for this movie, only not localized to my minority outlook. While "The Burly Brawl" might not seem like a big leap over "Bullet Time", from my limited reading it is. First consider that it wasn't Hugo Weaving and Keanu Reeves at all, and then consider that the camera doesn't pan around the action in a single plane, it dips and swoops through and around the action at all kinds of crazy angles (or so they tell me; I still haven't seen it). Very tricky stuff. I'm guessing it felt a little "off" at times, but then again, so did "Bullet Time". That's life on the bleeding edge.
Now whether or not that fight scene is justified by the plot is a whole 'nother issue...
Whew! That's more a reaction to the negative press I've seen on the effects in general, not a reaction to your effects comment specifically. You wouldn't think I'd have so much to say about a movie I haven't seen. :-)
I also suspect that the movie is a victim of it's own hype. Everybody seems to have forgotten the spotty acting and occassionally awful dialog the original sports (a movie I love, despite those two flaws). I remember cringing left and right every time Lawrence Fishburn opened his mouth.
Anyway, thanks for the review! You've renewed my flagging enthusiasm for the movie. I'll shut up now.
How was Die Another Day? I'm afraid of getting burned again, like I was by The World is not Enough.
I will try to get to this by the weekend, but I am afraid you may end up getting burned. I do not think it was as bad as The World is not Enough but it wasn't much of a step up either.
What did you think of Punch-Drunk Love?
What did you think of Vanilla Sky?
Can I make requests for Out of Sight, The Emperor and the Assassin, and Grosse Pointe Blank reviews?
If you look up to May you will see my very short review of Grosse Pointe Blank. I will try to get to the other two. You surprised me when you did not ask about Happy Times. I figured that one would draw a request out of you for sure.
Yikes! I was confused. I somehow thought that was a rewatch of Happy Accidents, which you'd reviewed earlier. Is it too late to add that to my request list?
Thanks! And agreed on all counts.
How was George Washington?