the year in film (1 Viewer)

[victor..cleaner]

firstly, thankyou for your enthusiastic approach to my "top 10" thread...
as a first timer at this forum it is pleasant to see that there are a lot of aussies who have great taste, in particular i agree with jim_green, Constip8edSkunk and toodulu (amadeus is a great one)...

as for Annegelic... i want to find you and punch you! i generally believe in the notion that everyone is entitiled to their own opinion but in your case i think you should be denied such privelages... liking, let alone LOVING 'She's All That' and 'The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen' should warrant capital punishment.

However enough raving, i want to know how the other film fans out there thought of the last 12 months at the movies...
i thought last year was a mixed occassion, (too many sequels spoilt the creative flow) but there have been a few more recent releases that have restored my faith in the American machine. as you can tell i don't watch a lot of foreign films, but so far these are what i regard as the best in the last year or so...
comment if you please

lost in translation (5/5)
confessions of a dangerous mind (5/5)
master & commander (4.5/5)
kill bill vol1 (4.5/5)
buffalo soldiers (4.5/5)
russian ark (4.5/5)
matrix reloaded (4.5/5)
intolerable cruelty (4/5)
welcome to the jungle (4/5)
finding nemo (4/5)
welcome to collingwood (4/5)

oh and lastly, in relation to teh winnar!'s comment (hey i have this wacked out crazy idea- post your lists in the 'top 5' thread for lists!!!!)....
feel free to exercise your right to blow me!

 

[MouNtY]

LOTR: ROTK (1 000 000 000 / 5)
HONEY (she's so hott) (4/5)
NEMO (funny as shit) (4/5)
LEAGUE OF ........ (i actually heard that was quite good)

thats all i can think of at the moment

 

[leiara]

LOTR: ROTK (1 000 000 000 / 5)

i agree

 

[MouNtY]

that movie was DA SHIT. i watched it like 5 times. Yes it's sad i know lol

 

[Benny_]

4.5/5 for Matrix Reloaded seems a bit much, but eh, I guess it had some good action sequences.

For me.

Lost in Translation 5/5

Kill Bill 5/5

Master and Commander 4.5/5

Love Actually 4.5/5

Finding Nemo 4.5/5 (Mainly because it was so much better than all the animated features last year.. possibly with the exception of Spirited Away)

Mystic River 4.5/5

Intolerable Cruelty- 4/5

Last Samurai 4/5

Secretary 4/5 - This is actually hilarious, and not because it's bad either.. very good comedy

LOTR:ROTK 3.75/5- I refuse to jump on the bandwagon here, it was a brilliant visionary film, epic and all, but when it comes to story and most of the characters, there's just nothing worthwhile.

School of Rock 3.75-one of the better 'great teacher' in recent years

Seabiscuit- 3.75- In contrast to LOTR, which had the tough task of bringing a cliche tale + shallow characters with likable quirks to life, Seabiscuit starts with one of the most inspirational true stories I've heard in recent times and really didn't have to do a lot to make it an enjoyable, feel good movie, and it didn't. It's not spectacular, but it ain't bad either. If it had been nominated in 2001 (for the Oscars), chances are it would've beaten A Beautiful Mind.

All in all this has been a great year for American cinema, the best year since... 1994 perhaps (Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction..others).

 

[Macccca]

Originally posted by DooNy_TeChY
LOTR: ROTK (1 000 000 000 / 5)
HONEY (she's so hott) (4/5)
NEMO (funny as shit) (4/5)
LEAGUE OF ........ (i actually heard that was quite good)

thats all i can think of at the moment

thanks for making me laugh so much.

 

[cyrax83]

honey 4/5 ?
err i know she's hot but the movie was crap ex music.. nothing but eye candy for 2 hours

 

[crazyhomo]

If you though ROTK deserved to win best film then you are a same-sex marriage. That's right. I can do political jokes.

 

[Trigger189]

'Big' Movies of 2003:

The Matrix Reloaded: 3/5
The Matrix Revolutions: 3/5
Kill Bill: 5/5
The Return of the King: 5/5
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines: 4/5
Pirates of the Caribbean: 4/5
Finding Nemo: 4/5
Master and Commander: 4/5
X2: 5/5
Last Sumarai: 4/5



Honorable Mentions:

Lost in Translation: 4/5
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: 4/5
21 Grams: 5/5
Mystic River: 5/5
School of Rock: 4/5
Intolerable Cruelty: 4/5

 

[Benny_]

5/5 for X2? Dude.. other than the special effects this thing reeked of a mediocre franchise movie. It might as well have had 'to be continued...' at the end. Yet somehow lots of critics like it as well.. it's insane I say.

 

[Lundy]

You're on a messageboard for high school students. 5/5 for something like Xmen isn't surprising, considering they are basically the target audience.

 

[Trigger189]

It got 5/5 because it was a really fun movie. 21 Grams and Mystic River, etc. were for the quality...but I also rate movies on how well I enjoyed them, and I really enjoyed that...got it on DVD..it rocks.

 

[Lundy]

And to whoever called LOTR a cliche tale..please explain. LOTR is a literary classic. IMO, Seabiscuit was the movie riddled with cliches. It's your typical little-(insert animal, person, thing here)-that-could movie. The sheer predictability (yes, I know it's a true story, but I didn't know the actual story before seeing it, and I could see the outcome coming a from mile away) and blandness made it this year's cinematic valium.

 

[smegthehead]

Originally posted by victor..cleaner
confessions of a dangerous mind (5/5)

mmmmm, i know it was clooney's first go at directing and everything, but still... IMO it was really slow moving, but luckily he had connections and was able to get some good actors in there. (3/5)

 

[Benny_]

Originally posted by Lundy
And to whoever called LOTR a cliche tale..please explain. LOTR is a literary classic. IMO, Seabiscuit was the movie riddled with cliches. It's your typical little-(insert animal, person, thing here)-that-could movie. The sheer predictability (yes, I know it's a true story, but I didn't know the actual story before seeing it, and I could see the outcome coming a from mile away) and blandness made it this year's cinematic valium.

Normally I'd agree with you on Seabiscuit, but I DID actually know the story beforehand (there was a doco on SBS a little before I saw it on the plane to HK), and somehow I found it really enjoyable.

As for LotR being a literary classic, I agree. However it is a literary classic because it pioneered the fantasy genre. The world that Tolkein created was certainly unbelievable in scope, but that's about it as far as quality in LotR goes. The characters in it are extremely one dimensional (you've gotta be kidding yourself if you think anyone but Gollum and perhaps Eowyn display more than one side of themselves in this book), and the story in a nutshell is utterly pathetic. Stories where evil is portrayed as a force of nature whose purpose is to destroy the world never did appeal to me. Neither for that matter do stories where the littlest guys make all the difference in an epic struggle, nor tales where the righteous exiled King returns to reclaim his realm. If you don't find this sort of thing boring, good for you, I'm probably too cynical for my own good anyway.

 

[Lundy]

re: seabiscuit - They could have done more justice to the true story if the movie wasn't so paint-by-numbers.

just curious, have you read the LOTR trilogy?

 

[Benny_]

I have read the LotR trilogy, 3 times actually. The first time I enjoyed it, so I read it a second time. The second time I couldn't believe I enjoyed it so much the first, and read it again a third time just to make sure I wasn't missing something. The third time I came to acknowledge that the reasoning behind the greatness of Tolkien must have been that he was the father of the fantasy genre, and that the world he created was beyond compare at the time. While I'm impressed by his imagination and commitment to create such a detailed world, ultimately those aren't things I necessarily look for in a novel, or a movie for that matter. I think the problem I have with LotR is that it's rootedly only shallowly to reality. The 'human' aspects of the characters are superficial (with the except of perhaps a couple of them), and the story is classic good vs evil. I could go on forever about why I don't like it, but I know better than to argue with ardent fans.

 

[Lundy]

Eh, I'm not a big fan either. I only got half way through reading the trilogy (just not my thing, personally), and the movies are good, but still vastly overrated.

 

[felix_js]

torque 10/10

wait -10/10 is what i meant

 

[Trigger189]

how are the movie overrated?