The Best and Worst Movies of 2003?

rufey asks: "As 2003 comes to a close, I thought it would be interesting to ask Slashdot what they thought the best and worst movie of 2003 was, and why. At the beginning of the year there was excitement about parts 2 and 3 of The Matrix triology, X-Men 2, and of course, LOTR: Return of the King. In Slashdot's opinion, what did and didn't live up to the hype and expectations, and were there any surprises?"

Re:Ug..

I'm certainly not going to vote for any of the LOTR pics as 'best movies'. Best "emulation of a coffee table picturebook" yes. Phenomenal scenes, pretty well done compositing, amazing themes but... everything just kept running ahead without giving me a feel of the true fellowship between our adventurers.

I've not read the LOTR books, and the movies have made me want to, but I don't feel they stand strongly on their own. Large format animated picture accessories to the books, but not on their own.

Re:Ug..

Having read the all three of the books the compromise TLOTR, I feel the need to note that:

a) the books are simply amazing, probably one of the best pieces of literature written in the 20th century.

b) the movies are are very entertaining, with some of the CG i've ever seen.

c) anyone who has seen the movies before reading the books has missed out on a truely great experience.

The movies I think are an excellent suppliment / add-on to the books. If you see the movie before you read the books, the books then become tainted, and you start seeing all the characters as they are portrayed in the movies. You also start to compare the movie to the book, instead of the more accurately book to movie view.

In closing, TLOTR:TROTK is one of the best movies created this year. I'm just depressed for all the poor people who haven't read the books first.

Re:Ug..

If you see the movie before you read the books, the books then become tainted, and you start seeing all the characters as they are portrayed in the movies

I personally have always had a hard time with books with a ton of characters. It's difficult for me to 'imagine' the appearances of a lot of different people. I tried on two separate occassions to get through the LOTR books and couldn't do it. After having seen the first two movies I sat down and read through them all and it was much easier because now I knew what the various characters looked like and it was much easier to keep track of who is who.

No way. Watch first, read later.

Ack! Wrong, wrong, wrong! I am a firm believer that, if at all possible, you should see the movie first and read the book second. In my opinion watching the movie is like reading an abstract or cliff notes... it hits the main points and gives you a good idea of what happens without a major time investment (granted the investment for LotR is a bit higher than the norm!). Then if you like the ideas and plot you can progress to the book and find out what *really* happens.

I love the LotR book trilogy, but when watching RotK I honestly wished for a few seconds that I hadn't read the books... that all the explanations, twists and developments could have been new and surprising. Instead while I enjoyed it greatly I also caught myself thinking "Sam never put on the ring!" and "Why aren't Merry and Pippin taller from the Ent-draughts?" and "What about replanting the Shire?"

My experience with Harry Potter solidified my watch-first belief... I watched the first movie and loved it, so much so that I went out and bought the first four books (which I had been avoiding for that absurdly stupid geek reasoning "They're popular and thus must be evil."). Then I watched the second move (after reading the book) and had that same nitpicking experience. "Why is Harry falling out of the car? He never fell out of the car! That's gratuitous nonsense!"

Re:Ug..

LOTR:ROTK and the rest of the series were in a rather tight bind, they had to respect the books enough(and the most-sold ever set of books of fiction in english literature kinda deserves a little). They also had to fit 5 books(in three volumes) into a three-movie set(and cut enough stuff to make it fit in the time constraints). They managed to alienate the true purists by cutting essential scenes from the movies, yet make it a wide-audience series that generated wide interest.

The cutting out of Tom Bombadil, for one example, was a perfect example of mass-marketing(it would helped to understand the world of Tolkien better, the mythology, and the role the Ring had with regards to the powers that be). It didn't include a fight scene, and the potential for special effects was minimal, so it was cut. The equivalent part with Galadriel, which served the same purpose, but to understand the relationship between the Elves' head honchos and the ring, didn't include a fight scene, but had more special effects/pizazz potential, was kept. I imagine that Saruman's invasion of The Shire(my term for it) was cut because it was hard getting that many male hobbits in uniform as to compose two opposing army units.

As for the books not standing out on their own, you're kinda missing the point... The books already are a hit, the idea is to translate the books into visual medium, for a different audience(how many people do you know would buy, then read a set of 3 800 page volumes? ), not make a related, but different product.

Re:The Matrix

Uh, I'm not following. The 1st was great and there was plenty of ways they could have expanded upon the 1st to make a good sequel (but obviously, they chose a different path).

Re:The Matrix

I think it was subjective with the 2nd and 3rd..
Personally, I think they were great. :)
There was a lot of philosophy going on in the background, and a lot to chew over, and debate what you through really was going on. :)
Not many movies these days play on consequence (to whit, setting off EMP pulse in the docking bay), or the fine line in some battles (the docking bay battle swung back and forth so many times, it made gripping viewing).
I can see there'd be quite a few people for who this Matrix 2 & 3 wasn't quite their cup of tea..
Same as Final Fantasy wasn't everyone's idea of a good movie..
Personally, I loved 'em. :)
But, as is the nature of art, it wasn't made to please everyone. Perhaps it didn't, but I've got the feeling it'll fit in that cult niche for a goodly many years to come.
But, like I said. Purely subjective. :) Perhaps if they'd followed a path you were happy with, I'd have felt they sold themselves short, or something. :)

Re:The Matrix

Marix Reloaded/Revolutions = worst movies ever.

How soon they forget Battlefield Earth.

Re:The Matrix

Gee, obviously you haven't seen Dance, Monkeyboy which stars some guy named Balmer.

Re:The Matrix

They shoved a WiFi card up his ass before flushing him in the first movie. It was a deleted scene, but you can see it on the upcoming Matrix Trilogy DVD.

Re:The Matrix

> At the end of Reloaded, I was left with a lot of
> questions as to what was going on, and why Neo
> was able to stop the sentinels. I have various
> ideas about that, most of which involved Neo not
> actually returning to the same Matrix (or "real
> world") he had come from. It also seemed possible
> that even the original "real world" wasn't really
> the real world, but in fact another Matrix.

My god Eric! I thought *EXACTLY* the same thing! I was still wondering if they were going to do the matrix within a matrix thing when NEO was able to see things in Red instead of Green. I just figured that the Red was him seeing the real matrix instead of the Green matrix within a matrix. When NEO stopped those sentinels in the fake real world, I could ONLY assume it was another layer of matrix. Remember when they said there was an original matrix? I figured that this original matrix was the one where NEO saw things in Red.

I *STILL* think they could reopen the storyline using this premise. Maybe go deeper into prequel with Creation of the Matrix or further into the storyline with NEO reawakening in the Real World and remembering he's a programmer or something. Maybe everyone in the matrix is a vegetable in the Real World - people who's only means of communication and life are only possible within the matrix. There is still much material that could be developed.

The Hulk

The Hulk. Need I say more? I wanted to throw something heavy at the screen during most of the showing.

Re:The Hulk

Are you kidding, that movie was pure Shakespeare. The entire father son conflict was like right out of an unwritten play. The sceen near the end where bruce and his father were having dialog under the spotlight - it was such an homage to the theatre.

This was one of the best movies of its kind that I have seen since Akira Kurasawa's "Ran".

Re:The Hulk

Seriously. This movie was horrible, and long. Near the end of the film, one of the characters said "I'm sorry" and someone in the theater shouted back, "Not as sorry as this movie!"

Re:The Hulk

Ditto. I rented it a couple of weeks ago. I was expecting "dumb and fun". What I got was "stupid and excruciating."

Re:The Hulk

The Hulk was made by an accomplished film maker [imdb.com] that made one of my (and probably one of your) favorite films of all time [imdb.com] . Visually and artistically, Hulk (while not the BEST movie ever) was not nearly as bad as everyone pretends. I think the problem was everyone was expecting "fun but dumb" and when they received something that was a little more experimental in style and truer to the tortured character from the comic books (especially the later ones), everyone felt cheated that they didn't get a "real" comic book movie. Maybe it wasn't Lee's best decision to try passing off something so different to a summer movie audience, but in a purely academic sense it really wasn't that bad. I would even say it was good.

(Revoutions, of the other hand... I've seen better writing on a cereal box. I think they really phoned that one in.)

Re:The Hulk

It wasn't the first time that a legendary asian filmmaker [imdb.com] has made [imdb.com] a dud [imdb.com]. In fact, it's not ang lee's first [imdb.com] dud [imdb.com] either.

Everyone is entitled to half of their films being well-intentioned failures... that shouldn't tarnish a reputation too much. Ang Lee is floating on the upper half of that equation, and is successful overall. The Wachowskis are two and two. Personally I feel Revolutions received a lot of the venom that should have been directed towards Reloaded. Forcing Keanu to act without his eyes was a stroke of brilliance, and really helped his performance.

Hulk, CGI, DVD "extras"

I made the mistake of renting Hulk on DVD. Well, at least that wouldn't have been as big a mistake as watching it in the theater. I was pretty stunned at how terrible the CGI was. Sure, I had seen the TV commericals but I naively figured that those commericals had been thrown together before the complete rendering had been completed and that the CGI in the final product would be much better than the trailers. Nope. I was really surprised.

But in watching the DVD extras my surprise turned to bewilderment and a little anger. While there was an entertaining featurette on the history of The Hulk from early comic books to TV to movies, most of the extras consisted of the movie makers going on and on about how incredible their CGI effects were and how they were doing something at a level of realism that no one else had ever tried. Now, I'll accept that perhaps what they had tried to do might have been quite ambitious but to suggest that they succeeded admirably was just too much to take. Quite frankly, I don't care how difficult the CGI technical problems are. If some average moviegoer like myself cringes at the poor quality of the effects, then you haven't succeeded at shit. It was really impossible to feel any kind of emotion because every time you saw that green bunch of silly puddy bounce around the screen you were instanteously "taken out of the movie". The poor quality of the CGI completely ruined whatever effect the director tried to accomplish.

Here on slashdot we oftentimes like to point to the extras on DVDs as a model for the RIAA to follow in terms of adding value to their product. But the more of these extras I watch, the more I'm really doubting whether they add any value. Most of these extras are simply interviews with the cast and crew gushing over what a great job they've done and how thankful they are to work with such a talented group of individuals and so on. It's really just a bunch of self-serving, back-slapping crap. The 'deleted scenes' featured on many disks are really awful to watch -- there's no wonder they were deleted! In times I've come away from a movie having a lower opinion of the film after watching these extras. Attack of the Clones is a prime example. Now, I certainly wasn't under the impression that this was some kind of masterpiece originally. But after watching the featurettes where Lucas agonizes over minute, insignificant details of the CGI characters yet doesn't seem to give a shit about the awful acting and gaping plot holes, I found myself feeling more negative about the film!

CGI has its place but it's clear that Hulk suffered tremendously because clearly the technology isn't there yet. And filmakers, make those DVD extras something worthwhile for a change, please.

GMD

Re:Hulk, CGI

A whole CGI character seems pretty ambitious, but hey - WETA Digital got it right with Gollum three years ago, which is an eternity in the digital FX business. There's no excuse for shoddy CGI now.

Re:Hulk, CGI, DVD "extras"

Now, I'll accept that perhaps what they had tried to do might have been quite ambitious but to suggest that they succeeded admirably was just too much to take.

I dunno. I submit that maybe if the Hulk had moved like a real human it might have worked better. Consider, the 'hulk dogs' - did they look convincing to you?

Human brains have some highly refined hardware for recognizing and predicting human movement. (Humans have been way more likely to fight other humans than animals throughout our history.) We're not as finely tuned to pick up on, say, quadruped motion.

Now (faithfully to the comics, I'll note) the Hulk did some things which just aren't physically possible. Tossing tanks the way he did would require him to be absurdly dense and heavy, even if his muscles were made of diamond nanofibers. If he were that heavy, he couldn't bounce around the way he did at other times. Mass, inertia, and balance didn't add up.

The point is, I think people pick up on this much faster with an anthropomorphic character than with a dinosaur, or a dragon, or a CGI cat, or what-have-you. The close-up scenes of the Hulk's face worked quite well for me, actually. I think he looked much more realistic than the people in "Final Fantasy", and I don't think the effects guys need to hang their heads in shame. I believe the technology is more "there" than you do, but that there's no amount of technology that can make an utterly impossible movement look 'real'.

Aside from that, there were other real triumphs. The multi-panel scenes took some getting used to, but really worked most of the time. The bit where Talbot is walking away from Bruce as Betty looks on, and for a moment you can see all three of their faces, tells you all about their relationships in a couple seconds.

Some of the plot was, well, problematic. The dialogue could have used polishing in places. I agree that its flaws keep it from being one of the "best" movies of the year. But where it works, it works very well, and some of the problems with it have been very overblown.

Surprises

Lost in Translation
American Splendor

Re:Surprises

Frankly, American Splendor was utterly uniteresting to me. Lost in Translation, however, was brilliant. I dont think I ever respected Murray as an actor before - though I've thought him to be a fantastic comedian - but this movie showed that he actually had the ability to evoke complex emotion. Scarlett similarly was impressive. The two of them are the movie, and I'd be shocked if they're utterly excluded from the Oscars.

Re:Surprises

I dont think I ever respected Murray as an actor before - though I've thought him to be a fantastic comedian - but this movie showed that he actually had the ability to evoke complex emotion.

What, you've never seen Rushmore? Murray won several awards [imdb.com] for his performance in that wonderful film.

Re:Surprises

Lost in Translation is my pick with Bill Murray as the best male actor performance of the year. One of the best defining scenes has Murray as the aging unknown actor with the brief 70s moment of glory doing a photo shoot to hawk whiskey. The photographer fires off a series of thickly accented names, "Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery, Roger Moore" and with each name Murray with just a subtle shift in position, a slight change in the angle of his eyes and his body becomes a characature of Sinatra, Connery and Moore. The scene is both funny and pathetic at the same time. Murray's character riffs on all of these icons, softly cracking one-liners at the expense of his audience of very professional Japanese advertising photographers, while the eyes reveal that this is a washed-up over-the-hill actor who is being paid a million dollars to sit in a chair with a glass of ice tea and pretend to be Sinatra hawking whiskey.

And while Murray is pulling off the acting job of his career, Sophia Coppola earns a name for herself as a director by keeping the entire thing hanging together, and delivering an astonishing romance without sentiment. Johannsen does an excellent job paired with Murray. Of the movies I've seen this year, this one sticks with me the most.

Re:Surprises

The script for "Lost In Translation" was pure genius. If there was ever a movie that deserved a screenwriting award, it's this one--just for what he tells her at the end. (Yes, I'm trying desperately to avoid a spoiler.) That was certainly one of the greatest moments in movies this year.

Sofia Coppola deserves an Oscar for the script, and a nomination for Best Director. I'm not so sure she deserves to win, though; there were some problems with the flow and pacing, and definitely some scenes that didn't need to be there. (For example, after the nth long sequence of Scarlett Johansson wandering around, I was thinking "We get the message, already.") On the other hand, the performance that she got from Bill Murray was just incredible, so it could go either way.

It will be a shame when Bill Murray doesn't win the Oscar, because his was literally the performance of a lifetime. I was overwhelmed. There were so many moments when he could have spilled over into being "that Bill Murray character", and didn't. He showed remarkable restraint that I didn't think he was capable of. He deserves the award. I doubt he'll get it.

pfftt

LoTR...meh..Go check out Bubba HoTep [slashdot.org]

poll...

shouldn't this be a poll?

Hello, Mummy...

3 words:

Bubba. Ho. Tep.

Re:Hello, Mummy...

HELLLS YEAH.

Bubba Ho-Tep [bubbahotep.com] is the best damn film I've seen in a long time. An instant cult classic.

Basic plot: Elvis and a black JFK take on a 10,000 year old mummy from Egypt. It's also got a great explination for Elivs's life, times, and thoughts on fame.

See this movie. Hopefully it will make it to DVD sometime soon.

Hail to the King..Yeah Baby..

I dont know which were the best ones..

But Gigli and Kangaroo Jack takes the cake for the worst ones..

Re:Hail to the King..Yeah Baby..

But Gigli and Kangaroo Jack takes the cake for the worst ones..

Not exactly. Actually, according to the IMDB bottom 100 films [imdb.com] listing, From Justin to Kelly [imdb.com] (the American Idol movie) is the #1 hands-down worst movie of all time. AND IT DESERVES IT. cf. review [everything2.com] here or on IMDB. Or..wow.

I am proud to have fought hard to get low votes for that movie. It was like Mary Poppins without Mary (or popping); like The Sound of Music without any Sound or Music worth re-hearing; like Oklahoma! only set on a god-awful Florida beach.

That said, if you want something to laugh at and have a friend who was foolish enough to pay for a copy of this tripe and you have free time and want to stare off into space for a while, From Justin to Kelly is the movie for you.

Re:Hail to the King..Yeah Baby..

Doubtless many of you are wondering right now, Should I click on the parent's link or not? Is it worth my while using up my precious computing resources to spawn a browser window? He says it's a "gem". But maybe it's just Gigli again. Why couldn't he have just said the name of the flick, dammit!? Click or don't click? What a dilemma!!

That's it, I'm fed up with this air-of-mystery shit! What say you we all band together and boycott clicking on needlessly obscure url descriptors like "this gem"? We few, we proud, we slashdotters, we can resist the lure of enigmatic links!

Okay, I couldn't resist...it was "Air Bud Spikes Back."

Sigh, what a downer. Damn you cjsnell. Damn you and your low slashdot number to hell! I'm so depressed, I'll think I'll go watch Chasing Papi (See? How hard was that?) [imdb.com]. I like my bad movies with a little eye candy.

Piglets Big Movie

really sucked.

I mean it did.

Put that in the bad list please.

Thanks.

School of Rock

This movie was much better than I thought it was going to be. It was fun to watch and see how Jack Black interact with a bunch of high class elemtary school students.

Not an award winner, or even close, but still a lot better than I was anticipating.

Matt Fahrenbacher

Best I've seen

Mystic River was pretty good.

Les Invasions Barbares (transl. to The Barbarian Invasions) was excellent.

I still haven't seen Lost in Translation. I hear it's great. 21 Grams seems really good too.

Pirates of the Carribean was surprisingly fun. A mix between The Princess Bride (but not as good story) and old computer game Monkey Island.

I can't think of anything else right now. Haven't seen RotK yet. Hopefully it'll be better than The Two Towers.

Two that I forgot

Finding Nemo was really fun and Kill Bill Vol.1 was very entertaining. I can't wait for volume 2.

Re:Best I've seen

Haven't seen RotK yet. Hopefully it'll be better than The Two Towers.

I went to see RoTK yesterday. Not knowing what sort of crowd to expect, my wife and I arrived 90 mins early for a 3:15 showing, and traded tickets for the 2:15 showing once we noticed (at 2 PM) that the 3:15 line was longer than the 2:15 line!

I was waiting for it to start, and remember some guy two rows behind me muttering about third movies sucking. "I hope it doesn't suck, because it's the third movie, and the third Matrix movie sucked. So this is probably going to suck." Heh heh, dumbass.

I liked the Two Towers more than FoTR, and I liked this even better. It has everything in it that made the Two Towers enjoyable, plus more stuff. I don't consider myself a Tolkien weenie, since I've only read the book once and that was ten years ago when I was in college. So I can sometimes remember something not being in the book, and it irks me when I see deviations from the book, but if they work in the movie then I don't care.

PRO:

• The battle scenes. The battle for Minas Tirith in RoTK makes the battle for Helm's Deep in the Two Towers look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. The orc army has new beasts and bigger war machines. More varied creatures and men take part in the fighting. More vehicles are used to get there. More people are killed by being carried into the air and dropped from great heights. Larger objects are smashed into castle doors. The Minas Tirith scene is the most amazing battle scene in the history of cinema. (Its only rival is Spartacus, since Kubrick didn't have CGI.) It is a triumph of production design. See it in the theater if you don't have a sixty inch screen.
• Gollum continues to become more of a conniving rat bastard. You get to see Andy Serkis in person as Smeagol (with Deagol) at the beginning of the movie, and you see his deterioration into Gollum explained without the need for any cringe-inducing narration. Although it seemed a bit hurried and I have a vague feeling that the Extended Edition DVD will contain a lot of scenes that were cut from here.
• Shelob is well done, exactly as I remember picturing her from the book. Jackson could have really messed this one up, too, as do many attempts at giant spiders in movies. Shelob was a mere highlight here, but that alone could have been enough material for a movie. Just think of all the stupid movies devoted to a single special effect like Godzilla.
• The signal fire scene. Watch a single bit of information travel across mountaintops all the way from Gondor to Rohan. Remarkably well filmed, and will surely help New Zealand's tourism industry.
• The volcano scene. I know the lava is all CGI, who cares. The atmosphere here and in the rest of Mordor is spot on. (Although I was bothered by the way [a certain major character] sinks into the lava. I'm pretty sure he would float. And show signs of being affected by the heat.) But it was really touching, seeing Gollum briefly reunited with his precious. I've never seen such a happy face in my whole life. It gives me the creeps now just remembering that happy face.
  

CON:

• The Aragorn/Arwen/Elrond subplot continues on its course as a slow motion train wreck through all three films. These include the Liv Tyler scenes that you use to check your watch.
• Legolas's required stunt scene retains the pornographic character it has in every movie. While they are extremely enjoyable, after you see them you feel stupid for having enjoyed them so much. But I have to admit that this movie has by far the best Legolas stunt scene of all three movies.
• Sauraman is already dead. He died an implied death in the movie you already saw last year. Put him out of your mind. Unless, that is, greedy executives at New Line Cinema apply pressure on Jackson to make a Scouring of the Shire "wedge sequel". You could fit the whole thing right in there as

Re:Best I've seen

Hmmmm, I saw it last night and thought it was thoroughly BADASS, but I have a few quibbles or additions:

The battle scenes.

I disagree. I would place the opening of "Saving Private Ryan", the first Coliseum scene in "Gladiator", or the massacre in "Last of the Mohicans" well above this. I'm probably forgetting something too. I would also rank the final fight in "Fellowship" above all the fights in the trilogy. It's important to note that these are all done on a smaller scale (even "Ryan" focuses on a small piece of beach) and with much less CG work. The CG work was excellent in RotK, but my suspension of disbelief only goes so far. The "Fellowship" fight, on the other hand, looked brutal and realistic.

Shelob

I didn't think Jackson could make a giant spider frighten me after at least ten viewings of "Aliens". I was wrong. Major, major props.

The signal fire scene.

I agree, but I doubt this was undiluted New Zealand. . . Jackson said very plainly at one point that while NZ was ideal for them, they did some doctoring to get it to look just right. Personally, after repeated viewings I still can't quite tell what shots that aren't immediately obvious as CG are manipulated, and what are original, but I doubt the signal fire scene was all natural. Still, very impressive.

Legolas's required stunt scene

I'm sorry, but the horse mounting in Two Towers fucking rocked, even if every female in the audience simultaneously climaxed. What made it so cool was the whole slo-mo lead-in from Legolas shooting arrows, and that what happens next is totally unexpected. When I watch the movies I keep rewinding that part (no, I'm not gay): I think it's the most impressively directed/coreographed scene in the trilogy. Just eye candy, yes, and nothing to do with the books, but utterly effective.

On that note, I was disappointed that they left out the part of "Fellowship" where Legolas shoots down one of the winged steeds at night (from a boat!). None of the elf stunts in the movies seemed out of place because I remembered reading that, but I wish they'd left it in - it really establishes that Elves are bad motherfuckers.

Matrix

I really really like the 3rd Matrix film. I'm a sucker for Dragonball Z fights.

It gets my award for best ever.

Re:another category

> one person clapped and he was stoned.

--Waitaminute... They STONED him just for clapping??? Now that's some harsh critics...
Oh. You meant something else, I guess.

nemo

nemo was pretty darn good for a major released cartoon.

The matrixes were ok, but didn't live up to the hype the first one caused.

i personally though 28 days later was a good movie.

if it were a poll it has a missing option...

"What about all of us who don't go to the movies or buy dvds, etc. and practice what we preach you insensitive clod!"

I'd have to say

Master and commander!

Pirates of the Caribbean

Yes, it was totally predictable, and standard.. but even so, it was awesome. If this is an indication of what Disney might make more of in the future, than I'm glad.

Re:Pirates of the Caribbean

I enjoyed it also, but mostly because of Johnny Depp's character. He was anything but predictable and standard, and saved the movie from being just yet-another-pirate movie.

And my god, Pirates of the Carribean 2 [imdb.com]???

Quentens masterpiece

Kill Bill was a surprise. But on second thoughts you never expect the Pulp fiction chap to churn out shoddy things. Though it was too violent for some people's taste, the action scenes are choreographed to perfection. No CGI etc and pure raw martal arts and it beats matrix hands down in the fights. The volume one of Kill Bill was released this year. Check out IMDB [imdb.com]

Re:Quentens masterpiece

I guess I'll have to comment on the general negativity being expressed by people who didn't like this film, both here in this thread and elsewhere.

Most of the complaints seem to stem from a general misunderstanding of QT's intentions and motivations for this film. The film's main motifs are ACTION and REVENGE. There is nothing particularly deep or difficult to comprehend in either of these themes. Action is Hollywood's favorite device. Revenge is something that is very close to the human heart. There is no need to really look for any meaning further than this. If you do you risk missing the simplicity of this film. (And then you may not like it.)

We complain about Hollywood films being too predicable and shallow, but there is something noble in QT's quest to make a movie DELIBERATELY simple. Action is its purpose, not a device. Its plot can be implied to: Injustice, then revenge. If poetry is minimalist communication, then well... far be it from me to say spring-loaded decapitations are poetic... but it looks like I just said it anyway.

To sum up, you are DEFINEATLY allowed to not like the very graphic nature of this film. I can respect that. But otherwise you may have missed the fact that this move is intentionally simple.

One of the years best for sure.

Re:Quentens masterpiece

My friend and I both walked out on this one, about an hour and a half into it. He wanted to leave after about half an hour, but I made him stay because I was just *sure* it was going to get better. It didn't. It got worse.

Totally boring, totally stupid, totally a complete and utter waste of time.

How someone who could make a movie as incredibly good as Pulp Fiction could make a movie as incredibly bad as Kill Bill will remain one of the greatest mysteries of my lifetime.

Re:Quentens masterpiece

I did feel the movie was a letdown, but it was not that bad. You just have to have watched a lot of hong-kong movies (i did ) beginning from the "drunken master" to like it.
Everything including the introduction " XYZ cinema presentation...... Our feature presentation ....Kill Bill" ,on a black background that too, was a spoof on the eastern movies. (Golden harvest movies usually start like that IIRC).
The action scenes were typically eastern, down to one (wo)man against a hundred scene . The excess of swords bit and lack of comedy was more Jetli'ish than Jackie Chan (and their hong kong movies not the hollywood ones).
Overall I think that this was the best "eastern-style" action movie ever to come out of hollywood.No bombs, no guns, no 30-wheel trucks being chased by helicopters. But then again, its an acquired taste and quentin probably was hanging out in hongkong for too long for his own good.
I also like the chapterwise progression, very much anime like. Also the background scores were great if you can follow it
Anyway there is a second part coming up, if you watch the first half of "Pulp Fiction" it would have been plain boring. Just let him get out the second part and pray it doesnt end up like matrix.

Wire-fu doesn't count as "realism"

I agree that Kill Bill was good. The fact that they didn't use any CGI made it significantly better, IMHO. Does anybody else feel like they're overdoing it with computer graphics in some movies??? Maybe I've just seen so many well done CGI scenes that the majority of computer aided action shots just seem lame to me.....

I'm a bit puzzled that you seem to be extolling the virtues of a wire-fu flick as a pinnacle of realism. It's been a damn long time since I've seen a believable martial arts film. The wire-fu stuff is getting as overused as CGI. Seriously, if you're in a fight you don't do 10 meter backflips over your opponents. Actually, I'm not sure anyone can do flips like that regardless of whether it makes good tactical sense or not. Yes, I'm aware the capoirera contains lots of flips and cartwheel-like motions but a lot of that is built into that particular martial art because it was developed by slaves who had to disguise their practice as a dance to avoid their masters cracking down on them.

When you do a flip you are basically expending a considerable amount of effort and energy to perform a complex maneuver that temporarily blinds you, leaves you vulnerable to your opponent, and doesn't really move your center of mass very far in the horizontal direction. It's just not a wise idea to go flipping around like crazy when people armed with weapons are trying to kill you. Best just to stand your ground and block or take a step back (or to the side).

Sometimes I wonder whether the reliance on wire techniques is an attempt by Hollywood to show something outside the everyday experience of the moviegoer in the abscence of any talented martial artists. In decades past, audiences could be wowed by the superior skill of someone who could actually do martial arts well. These days, it seems like directors are insisting that the actors try to do the fight scenes and then they use wire-fu to make up for the fact that these people really can't do very much. You don't see any Bruce Lee or Jet Li types who can move incredibly fast. Instead you get Keanu Reeves or Uma Thurman doing a backflip over 3 opponents in slow motion. That just doesn't really impress me and it certainly doesn't count as realistic fighting. Why can't they hire some competant martial arts to do something REAL and just use CGI or maybe even masks to make the stunt person look like the actor?

Ah well, just my two cents. I'm just getting a little annoyed by everyone gushing over these acrobatic shows as "awesome martial arts flicks".

GMD

My nomination

Britney Spears in Crossroads.

Very touchy and intellectual.

I cried all night.

"In Slashdot's opinion..."

With regard to these movies, Slashdot doesn't have opinions. It has geekloads of rock-solid, indisputable facts. Though these facts might vary and occasionally even conflict, they are all absolutely true, from a certain point of view.

28 Days Later - best horror movie in years

28 Days Later may be the best horror movie that I've seen since the original alien. An amazing amount of tension - but what really got me was that it didn't rely on special effects. From an effects perspective, you could have made the same movie in 1970.

Watch this movie and realize that you can do sci-fi and horror without relying on the crutch of CGI effects.

Re:28 Days Later - best horror movie in years

it also won the privilige of being on a recent list of "movies which menstruate" that included, among others... ; "28 days", "28 days later", "red dawn", ""blood on the moon", "sunday bloody sunday", and "my bloody valentine"

The worst movie? That's an easy one.

I've got this Paris Hilton mpeg, see, and...

Re:The worst movie? That's an easy one.

Battlefield Earth. It was so bad it keeps smearing itself into successive years. That kind of momentum of awful takes a long time to stop!

new concept

wow. a thread designed just for trolling. interesting concept.

Bad Santa

A truly hilarious film. There was some controversy that people might have confused it for a lighter Christmas parody, but it was an excellent dark farce.

Best quote from Billy Bob Thorton, while in a Santa suit, while having anal sex with a woman: "You're not going to shit right for a week."

Re:X-Men2 surprise, matrix revolutions

What do you mean his acting "started to get cheesy?" Have you SEEN the Bill and Ted movies?

Good Lord man, the reason they got away with Keanu Reeves in the first movie is because all he really had to do in that one was act confused the whole time. They ran into trouble when they actually tried to get him to act in the second and third films.

The Ring

This is probably the scariest movie I've ever seen. It was released in 2003, right? If not, it's *still* my pick of 2003.

At first it looks like a juvenile cross between "Conspiracy Theory" and "The Net", but then it shifts gears and scares the living shit out of you.

I'm still freaked (can you tell?), and I only saw it once.

Re:The Ring

The Ring came out in 2002 [imdb.com], actually.

However I agree, this was an EXCELLENT horror film. I think 28 Days Later might edge it out, but as far as pure FEAR, this one is much scarier.

I'm trying to get a friend of mine to come over and watch it with me. Of course, in my opinion, if you want to watch it, you have to rent a VHS tape, NOT a DVD. You'd have to see it to know what I'm talking about.

Then in your pocket, have your cell phone (in silent mode) pre-dialed to your friend's cell... after the movie, push the "Send" button as you walk up to the VCR to push rewind or get the tape. Sure to ruin a perfectly good pair of pants. :-)

Mark

Re:The Ring

My fiance doesn't go for scary movies, so I watched this one myself on DVD (I know VHS would be more apropos, but I'm hooked on the fidelity). I like to think I have a pretty firm grip on reality and have rarely seen a good horror film.

In a word, The Ring kicked my ass. Let me just say I watched it with the lights on. ;)

Re:The Ring - japanese version is better

I am going to have to disagree. This is one case where the American remake is actually significantly better than the original Japanese version. I don't want to take away from the original though, it was an extremely good movie made on a very small budget. However with that said, I could make many points in favor of "The Ring".

First of all "Ringu", the Japanese version, doesn't have the double meaning that "The Ring" has. In "The Ring" , the 'ring' is both the the telephone ring and also the halo of light that the girl saw as the lid was covered over the well. This is not the case in "Ringu".

As another poster has already pointed out, "Ringu" was a bit more fantasy oriented with the girl, as well as others, being psychic. However, in "The Ring", the girl had demonic origins - her parents weren't supposed to be able to have children, but they went overseas and came back with one.

Secondly, "Ringu" was indeed a lower budget film. When the people died from the psychic girl, they were left with a grimace on their face. Where as when the demonic girl from "Ringu" killed someone, their body was left as if they had died and rotted in the well. This is a big step in not only special effects but the motivation of the killers. "The Ring" just tries to be more horrific than "Ringu" in every way that it can. But it doesn't give you an overdose of special effects - I don't think there has been such clever editing in a horror movie since the first big Dracula movie.

There are many other small details, but the difference that stuck out the most in my mind was this: At the end of the movie when the boy says "You FREED her? You weren't supposed to free her." It is such an incredible twist and it leaves you with a terrible feeling in your belly. Nothing like that happens in "Ringu".

In conclusion, it is very apparent that the American filmakers took great effort in making "The Ring" as much of an improvement as they could. But I still say that "Ringu" is worth watching, there are many details in the story that you can only get from the Japanese version - though the story lines aren't exactly the same.

Terminator 3 - ick

Kludge of a story that was hacked together to sell tickets. Inclusion of a new stronger, faster, & harder to kill Terminator that also oozes with sexual energy & is not scary or intimidating. Film score that didn't use the Terminator2 theme to inspire awe & fear.

T2: "Hasta la vista, baby!"
T3: "Talk to the hand."

eww. I feel dirty just thinking about that film.

ROTK BAD.

I mean the already published the book for the 3rd movie! How much does that suck? And don't get me started on how much it stole from that satanic game D&D! I mean anyone who has anything to do with D&D is evil and should be shot!

Re:ROTK BAD.

I mean anyone who has anything to do with D&D is evil and should be shot!

Would that be Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil...?

Kill Bill Volume 1++

Went into Kill Bill without really knowing anything about it, and enjoyed myself as much as when I saw Clockwork Orange at the theater after it was unbanned (I'm from the UK).

Why? Because of the fighting. I'm not really into violent movies or the whole escapism thing, but seeing Uma Thurmann kick some major ass was almost sexual. A nice pastiche of the last 50 years of kung-fu cinema.

I had huge hopes for 2003

When I found out I was going to conclude The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings in 2003 all within months of each other, I was jittered with excitement. Both movie series filled in two seperate geek aspects; computers and epic fantasy. Some say The Matrix fell short with the sequels, but I won't get into the argument. I for one enjoyed all three Matrix films, and that's that. The ending of Revolutions left me somewhat satisfied, but not filled with joy knowing and seeing the end. Now just the other night I watched Return of the King and that void of emotion has been completely filled. Not only did The Lord of the Rings movie series end, it gave a full out conclusion. Most people not familiar with the books (That's me until I saw FOTR and then read the books for the first time) would assume that when the ring is destroyed the movie would end. Instead we're returned to the purity of Middle Earth as it once was before the corruption of the ring where the king of men rules once more, and the Hobbits drink, dance and sing joyfull songs. Unlike Matrix Revolutions we just get the idea that the Matrix lives on, but those who want out are freed and the machines no longer go off patrolling and killing humans from Zion (Assuming the humans don't go off killing the machines). That ending is nice and non-conventional, but it leaves an emotional gap. Return of the King fills the void, and even overflows it.

"You bow to no one..."

:'-(

Worst.... Movie.... Ever....

OK, so I never saw it, but I'd like to nominate a movie from January 17th. That instant horror classic (the horror being what you expiriance at even having to watch the commercials for it)...

Kangaroo Jack [rottentomatoes.com]

Best movie? Pirates of the Carabian was good, I haven't watched Seabiscuit yet (I've got it on DVD near me right now), I liked X-2, and I thought that The Matrix: Reloaded was entertaining, Nemo was fantastic, I loved A Mighty Wind, and those are the only 2k3 movies that I've seen (that I can think of) as I only watch DVDs.

Does Chicago count? It came out Dec 25th of last year, so that's within the last year (not last calender year though).

Dogville

No doubt. Powerful stuff. Too bad Kidman won't be there for the rest of the trilogy, but I don't think von Trier will disappoint... 'nuff said. Wouldn't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it [tvropa.com].

X-men 2 - I cried when I saw Nightcrawler

Who would have guessed the X-men 2 would be so great?

I literally shed tears when I saw the way they did Nightcrawler... it was perfect. The attack at the beginning of the movie was perfect... I just wish that I hadn't seen the previews so that I would have been completely caught offguard.

The portrayal especially his religiousness was amazing.

The only minor problems that I overlooked:

1) He wasn't fuzzy (ie. Fuzzy Elf)
2) In the attack scene, he was clearly teleporting behind walls and such, something that he wouldn't be able to do properly. The only reason that I could think of that he would do that was because he was under the mind control and that forced him to do crazy things.

Bad Santa

Bad Santa was as close to a perfect movie as I've seen in a long time. It stayed true to itself, managed to be funny, thoughtful, and obscene all at once, and the characters and plot developed while still having plenty of action and slapstick.

LotR: RotK was second in my book. I'm a geek who reads the book every year. Yet somehow I don't hold the book or its author up as holy items beyond reproach or critique. Peter Jackson has done a marvelous, magnificent thing with these three movies and I hope he wins some awards this year (best director, screenplay, and/or movie) from the big shows like Oscar and Globe. I find the nitpicks humorous and interesting as pieces of trivia, but feel sad about and pity towards those who get up in a bunch about minor inconsistencies, mistakes, and additions/omissions in such a masterpiece.

My guilty pleasure this year was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It was much better than all the reviews led me to believe. I actually enjoyed it more than X2 by a large margin. It was a fun action movie with really cool steam-punk technology and "magical" mythical heroes. What's not to like?

My biggest disappointments were the Matrix sequals. WTF happened? Jackson did it right and the Wachowskis did not. My personal theory is that if the Wachowskis had been given the opporunity to shoot the three all at once The Matrix would be held up as a peer to LotR. The huge delay between The Matrix and Reloaded caused all kinds of subtle problems and gave the brothers too much time to think about the screenplay. Sometimes less is more.

My happiest moment was when I discovered how to rip DVDs I rent to my hard disk. Then I burn those rips onto SVCDs to pass around to my friends as cheap Christmas presents.

God bless us, every pirate!

Re: Bad Santa

> My guilty pleasure this year was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It was much better than all the reviews led me to believe. I actually enjoyed it more than X2 by a large margin. It was a fun action movie with really cool steam-punk technology and "magical" mythical heroes. What's not to like?

A more formulaic movie was never made.

The Matrix v. LOTR

The story's the thing. The Matrix started strongly, with enough subtlety and interesting ideas paired with killer wire fights and excellent effects to capture the public eye; the 2nd film, however, floundered on screen (though I thought it was still worth the price of admission) with less story and more special effects and CGI. By the end of the third film, It was like watching a hurricane, that once was beautifully coiled, rippling with power and newness, dissipate into just another tropical storm named Huey, or something similar. I still thought the third flick was worth my ten bucks but was let down, ultimately with the 2nd and 3rd, because the beginning was so strong. With the LOTR, the story's already there and strong. Tolkien knew more world mythology by rote than most people have ever heard or read. I remember in college chuckling when coming upon certain dwarf names in some obscure book of the Dead Sea Scrolls. With that background and perspicuity already in the work, Jackson had to "merely" transfer one great media work to another format (and I applaud his efforts). Did he also make use of the best CGI available? Certainly. Did it work? Yes. Of course not everyone is pleased with casting, cuts, etc., but I've found the three Tolkien films a much more pleasing crescendo when compared with the Matrix.

The Triplets of Belleville.

Also known as "Belleville Rendez-Vous".

French animated feature, very bizarre and entertaining. Lots more fun to look at than any American feature cartoon in recent memory. It reminded me why I got into animation in the first place.

28 Days Later

End of story!

Seriously though, it was the best horror/sci fi movie that I have seen in at least a decade.

The night that I saw it, I stopped to pee outside in a wooded area and every time I heard ANY sound I would spin around to make sure that it wasn't an infected coming for me.

No movie has made me get up and check to make sure my doors were locked like 28 Days Later.

I've seen more movies this year than I did since I was about 9, and there have been some real Gems. Like X2 & Underworld, but 28 Days Later really spoke to me.

The Last Samurai: GOOD!

Maybe it's just my penchant for Japan-themed movies, but I found this one to be excellent. Great acting, good plot... and somehow they managed to pull it off without gobs of arterial spray (yes, there is blood, but for the concept of the movie it is limited) and/or gratuitous sex.

In fact... it's the first movie I've seen in a long time that pulled the romance theme without a down-and-dirty-sheets moment. Imagine that.

It also reminded me of Shogun... for any that remember the old miniseries (recently re-released on DVD) with Richard Chamberlain as a European naval pilot stranded in Japan. Could just be that Cruise resembled Blackthorne in this one, but man the guy had style! In fact... not normally being much of a Cruise fan myself, I'd recommend this movie all the movie because he really did do a good job of it.

Winner, Loser, Disappointment...

Just got back from seeing LOTR-ROTK, it simply IS the winner. As a 40-something who read LOTR first at about 12, I can only say WOW! To see a story I love dealt with so well by artists who seemed to also love the story... well, they win.

Like every year, there were so many losers it is hard to pick, but Timeline gets the nod for the same reason LOTR did - how they handled a book I had read. I really liked Timeline when I read it about 4 years ago, but the hollywood hacks (no artists involved) thought all that boring history stuff would just get in the way of the big yellow fireballs. They seem to say "The book you read didn't have enough explosions, we know you'd rather have explosions than any respect for the story."

Since it inevitably came up - The Matrix finale was a disappointment, but not anywhere near the worst of the year. Seeing it in IMAX made the explosions and big yellow fireballs kind of mesmerising...

Sorry, not a very geeky list

Here are my top 10 of 2003 (IMDB ratings in parentheses):

10). School of Rock [imdb.com] (7.7)
9). Kill Bill [imdb.com] (8.2)
8). Mystic River [imdb.com] (8.1)
7). 21 Grams [imdb.com] (7.9)
6). Elephant [imdb.com] (7.6)
5). Talk to Her [imdb.com] (8.2)
4). American Splendor [imdb.com] (8.1)
3). Gerry [imdb.com] (6.2)
2). Spellbound [imdb.com] (8.5)
1). Lost in Translation [imdb.com] (8.2)

A few movies that I've heard good things about that haven't reached us yet in Boston that may end up displacing some of the above are:

- House of Sand and Fog [imdb.com] (?)
- Girl with the Pearl Earring [imdb.com] (7.2)
- Japanese Story [imdb.com] (6.5)
- The Triplets of Belleville [imdb.com] (7.2)

Movies that I can't fathom why everyone liked:

3). Better Luck Tomorrow [imdb.com] (7.6)
2). Swimming Pool [imdb.com] (7.1) (I didn't understand this movie until about a week after seeing it, so maybe it is good and I'm just an idiot).
1). Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World [imdb.com] (7.5)

KILL BILL

The movie I thought was the best of the year was the one I least expected to like. Kill Bill (Vol 1) was just astounding. The sense of style, the attention to detail, the outright chutzpah, the buckets of blood... Usually I hate bloodfests, but this movie was just so well executed that I got over the blood and just loved it to pieces. I guess his goal was to make a live-action anime, and as far as I'm concerned it was perfection, even down to all the names being like stupid translations from Japanese.

And you have to give QT props for dressing Uma up like Bruce for half the movie!

A Great Flick You Probably Missed...

I'm absolutely shocked that nobody mentioned this movie. This film is destined for the AFI's Top 250 Movies of All Time. Just you want and see!.

What film am I talking about? You'll just have to see for yourself! [imdb.com].

Some good non-nerd movies...

• The Spanish Apartment - bunch of European grad students sharing a cramped apartment in Barcelona. Laugh-out-loud funny, and, as an extra bonus, extended screen time for the stunningly hot Judith Godreche
• Chicago - great tunes, mostly done justice (though Hugh Jackman would have been so much better than Richard Gere). I'm putting this is because it was released in 2003 in Australia.
• 8 Mile - for the MC battle at the end.
• 24 Hour Party People - sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.
• Punch-drunk Love - an Adam Sandler movie that won't make you vomit, amazingly enough.
• Secretary - Take your girlfriend to see this one ;)
• 25th Hour - great ending sequence.
• Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - find out who was responsible for trash TV, and what he got up to in his spare time (allegedly). Great direction by George Clooney (and no, that's not an oxymoron)
• Kill Bill volume 1, though this only half counts as non-nerd, given the anime sequence.
• Finally, a special award for 2 Fast 2 Furious, for the funniest crypto-homosexual undertones for a homophobic audience since Ben-Hur.

Why?

I'm just wondering. Why is there such a..well..harsh retribution on the movie equilivient of a hard sci-fi movie?

Why was everybody turned off by the philosophy and world building in Reloaded/Revolutions? I thought that was the best thing about the movies. Forget the fight sequences, I want more thought, more detail, more technology.

The ONLY thing that disappointed me (on an intellectual basis. On an emotional basis it made me giddy) about Revolutions, is that now after seeing the ending, and looking back on it, the story was actually written as a homage to the Final Fantasy series.

Nothing-hero is the chosen one to take command and lead the battle against multiple enemies, only to join forces with one, to fight against an even greater threat to them both.

Then take the music during the battle between Smith/Neo, and the music during the final credits (the underbeat is the same as the Boss music from FF9).

Too easy.

But still a great movie.

Why don't people get giddy about detail like I do?

The Station Agent... more

I'm no film critic, but I've seen a LOT of movies this year, so here's my picks.

Best of 2003:

• The Station Agent [rottentomatoes.com] - A dwarf makes unlikely friends.
• Whale Rider [rottentomatoes.com] - Overcoming macho BS.
• Better Luck Tomorrow [rottentomatoes.com] - Amoral rich kids.
• Owning Mahowny [rottentomatoes.com] - Banker gambles away millions
• Lost in Translation [rottentomatoes.com] - Funny, deep.
• LOTR: Return of the King [rottentomatoes.com]
• Oseam [yesasia.com] - sad Korean anime
• Animatrix [rottentomatoes.com] - All style

Worst of '03:

• Matrix Revolutions [rottentomatoes.com]
• Bulletproof Monk [rottentomatoes.com]
• Teknolust [rottentomatoes.com] - One of those movies that tries really hard to look tech-clever, but falls on its face.
• Firefight [rottentomatoes.com] (I could only stand to watch the first 10 minutes of this Balwin B-movie)

--

A bad year except for....

Kill Bill Volume 1 - Beautiful art cinema
Lilja 4-Ever - Harrowing and one of the few movies to make me cry
28 Days Later - Brilliant low budget horror
Terminator 3 - A sequel that lived up to its predecessors
The Return Of The King - The entire trilogy is a masterpiece of modern cinema

As for the rest.... well I was severely disappointed by the Matrix sequels more than anything else. Those who respond that I "just don't get it" are missing the fact that while the IDEAS were sound, the EXECUTION left everything to be desired. A movie needs STORY, PLOT and AUDIENCE EMPATHY to be successful, not just eye candy, which while great doesn't keep you coming back over and over again.

Let's hope there's better fare in 2004.

My favorites of the year:

I did not originally intend to mention all the 2003 movies I had seen, but after naming about ten of them, I kept wanting to mention another one. So, for the sake of completion, I checked a box office chart and started listing them all... sort of in order of best to worst, but not exactly. Maybe this will earn me a +1 Informative or something. In any case, I hope you find this useful, because I took about 15 minutes typing it up. :-)

---

The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions -- As a 4.5-hour whole, one of the few greatest sequels of all time, and probably my favorite film of all time. I think separating the two parts by 5.5 months was a good business move, but ultimately it cost the finale quite a bit in that many fans have decided not to like it so much. I think that would have been very different had all 4.5 hours been told at once, even if they were still released as separate films (which, in the long run, I think would have made them more money at the box office... oh well).

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King -- I sat it at 12:01am on Wednesday and 1:30pm on Thursday. Another of the greatest sequels of all time. Except I'd stop the movie after the first time the screen fades and put the rest of the footage after the credits as an epilogue, for various reasons. I'll be quiet on that just because so many of you haven't seen it yet.

Identity was my favorite non-sequel movie of the year. Simply an amazingly well done psycho-thriller. If you haven't seen it and don't mind a little blood, I highly recommend it.

Basic was one of the best movies I had seen in a long time when I saw it, just because it left me asking what the hell just happened, yet I knew what had just happened. I thought it was a well put-together film, and I still haven't decided whether I should buy it or not.

The Rundown was much better than I expected it to be. I don't know why I liked it as much as I did, but it was immensely entertaining. The Rock surprised me, and Sean William Scott actually played his part well.

Phone Booth was very good. Simply an incredible performance by Colin Farrell to carry the movie. Another psycho-thriller (I guess I like those) that got my attention when I heard Kiefer Sutherland's voice.

Finding Nemo, of course, is one of the best animated films of all time. Disney is getting better and better with those.

X2: X-Men United was surprisingly good, enough so to get me into X-Men (again for the first time) and by the special edition 4-DVD set. (Another sequel, Legally Blonde 2, was even cheesier and therefore less entertaining than the first. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, however, was surprisingly entertaining. I'm glad I went along for that ride. Terminator 3 was good for me. It fit along with the story, and the action was on par with what I expected. Good, not great.)

Dickie Roberts was surprisingly good. I highly recommend it to anyone who was addicted to TV at any time between the 1970s and 1990s. The plot is what can be expected from a David Spade comedy, but the end credits alone justify sitting through the film for any TV junkie. Daddy Day Care was also surpringly good, enough so to warrant my pondering of an Eddie Murphy comeback. Just Married was also a good comedy. I enjoyed it, anyway. Bringing Down the House, on the other hand, was somewhat disappointing but not altogether horrible.

Old School was also very funny, but not nearly as good a movie as I had hoped for. Will Ferrell makes us laugh, but that's all. I thought the same of ELF, except that it does rank pretty highly for me on the Christmas movie charts, so it gets a bonus point or two for being a holiday film.

The Italian Job makes my list just because I like that kind of movie. Heist movies are generally fun for me. For the same reason, I also liked Matchstick Men quite a bit.

Bruce Almight

the length of films

Does anyone else think it's interesting how films seem to be getting much, much longer? There have been numerous 2+ hour films in the last year or two, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Kill Bill (vol 1), the second two Matrix films, all three LotR films, and seemably a couple others. Are people's attention spans getting longer again (due to the internet vs. TV, maybe?), or is this just a trend of a series of 3 3-hour 'compilation' stories?

At any rate, I'm not sure if I like it or dislike it. Part of me enjoys being able to have 3 hours of film to properly tell a story; another part of me thinks that they intentionally pad the films to make them longer (as with LotR and the overly-emotional and excessive dialog at times); yet a third part of me wonders, "Where's the goddamn intermission, I've got to piss!" - they did have intermissions back in the day for really long films. Why not now? It's painful to sit there with a full bladder, but more often than not, it's preferable to missing 5+ minutes of a film you paid $7+ to see (more if you're on a date).

Re:Most overrated...

Matrix Revolutions, overrated?
It was rated very poorly by nearly every crit...

Oh.

Re:Best: LOTR/Matrix. Worst: LOTR/Matrix

didn't have anything new to offer viewers except a nine hour fantasy-boy masturbation session.

And what's wrong with that?