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?"

Comments

Surprises

[shawkin]

Lost in Translation
American Splendor

pfftt

[Frequanaut]

LoTR...meh..Go check out Bubba HoTep

poll...

[webtre]

shouldn't this be a poll?

Hello, Mummy...

[Ironclad2]

3 words:

Bubba. Ho. Tep.

School of Rock

[Ghoser777]

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

nemo

[Cheeze]

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.

Pirates of the Caribbean

[Quobobo]

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.

Quentens masterpiece

[tanveer1979]

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

28 Days Later - best horror movie in years

[fetta]

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:Most overrated...

[Sivar]

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

Oh.

Re:The Matrix

[calebtucker]

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).

Bad Santa

[crispy1083]

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."

I had huge hopes for 2003

[PovRayMan]

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..."

:'-(

Bad Santa

[foo fighter]

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!

The Triplets of Belleville.

[Peganthyrus]

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.

Re:The Matrix

[HardCase]

Marix Reloaded/Revolutions = worst movies ever.

How soon they forget Battlefield Earth.

Re:The Matrix

[malkavian]

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:Hail to the King..Yeah Baby..

[AEton]

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

Not exactly. Actually, according to the IMDB bottom 100 films listing, From Justin to Kelly (the American Idol movie) is the #1 hands-down worst movie of all time. AND IT DESERVES IT. cf. review 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:The Hulk

[laxcat]

The Hulk was made by an accomplished film maker that made one of my (and probably one of your) favorite films of all time . 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.)

Hulk, CGI, DVD "extras"

[GuyMannDude]

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, DVD "extras"

[Dr. Manhattan]

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.

Re:The Ring - japanese version is better

[forgotmypassword]

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.

Re:The Ring

[Geeyzus]

The Ring came out in 2002, 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:Hulk, CGI

[adrianbaugh]

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.