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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?"
The Hulk. Need I say more? I wanted to throw something heavy at the screen during most of the showing.
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
Lost in Translation
American Splendor
LoTR...meh..Go check out Bubba HoTep
and I have not had a chance to see it yet!!!
:-)
I just know
worst...Gilie or how ever you spell that crappy Ben and Jen movie.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
shouldn't this be a poll?
litigious bastards
suck it sco!
3 words:
Bubba. Ho. Tep.
I dont know which were the best ones..
But Gigli and Kangaroo Jack takes the cake for the worst ones..
Rapid Nirvana
really sucked.
I mean it did.
Put that in the bad list please.
Thanks.
clifgriffin > blog
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
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
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.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
I really really like the 3rd Matrix film. I'm a sucker for Dragonball Z fights.
It gets my award for best ever.
Mikey
I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
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.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
"What about all of us who don't go to the movies or buy dvds, etc. and practice what we preach you insensitive clod!"
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Master and commander!
A blog like any other.
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.
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
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Britney Spears in Crossroads.
Very touchy and intellectual.
I cried all night.
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 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.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
Matrix Revolutions, overrated?
It was rated very poorly by nearly every crit...
Oh.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
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).
My sig can beat up your sig.
I've got this Paris Hilton mpeg, see, and...
wow. a thread designed just for trolling. interesting concept.
Wow, I suck as a person. Replace "was plenty.." with "were plenty.."
My sig can beat up your sig.
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 was really surprised how entertaining X-Men2 was... I didn't enjoy the first terribly, but Nightcrawler alone sold me on the third. Plus, there was better (but still weak) character devolpment, plus tiny peeks of some old favorites (Shadowcat, Colossus, etc.) Surprisingly good... After Reloaded, I don't think many were surprised that Revolutions was as bad as it was though... Reeves' acting started to get cheesy, and the storyline? Good grief...
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.
sigs, as if you care.
I thought that the Matrix series had potential, but I was extremely let down by the Reloaded, though Revolutions almost redeemed that. In my mind, they should have stopped with the original. It stood much better on its own than the story line created after the addition of this year's movies.
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.
The first was the best, but as with most sequels you start coming across the law of diminishing returns (except for box office takings). The third especially seemed like one over-long movie trailer relying too heavily on CGI to make up for a lacking script.
Video Game cheats, hints a
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!
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.
mogorific carpentry experiments
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..."
----------
Check out my blackbox styles
as the worst movie of not only this year, but every year since it was released (1992). It was so bad, people kept asking to re-evaluate it, just to see if anyone could do any worse.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Kangaroo Jack
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).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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.
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.
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.
And what's wrong with that?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
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!
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Finding Nemo was really fun and Kill Bill Vol.1 was very entertaining. I can't wait for volume 2.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
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.
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.
egypt urnash minimal art.
How soon they forget Battlefield Earth.
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.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Good:- :)
"Gettin Square" - David Wenham in Leopard print budgie smugglers anyone? Maybe not but I'll happily watch Freya Stafford getting hot & sweaty any day of the week
"Standing in the Shadows of Motown" - like Buena vista social club with a better soundtrack
Bad:-
Kill Bill - easily the worst movie Quentin Tarantino has ever directed (because the other three are all 5* classics) and a huge disappointment didn't pay to see the Matrix or the Hulk so I can't comment on their suckiness
What are you listening to? (http://megamanic.blogetery.com/)
I think it was subjective with the 2nd and 3rd.. :) :) :) :) Perhaps if they'd followed a path you were happy with, I'd have felt they sold themselves short, or something. :)
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.
I watched Kill Bill with great anticipation but was thoroughly disappointed. I mean anyone who starts the credits with "Quentin's 4th Film"... WTF!?! I mean I like his movies but this was just a piss take. I didn't feel involved during the action scenes. We knew Uma would win from start and I didn't even notice most of the people she killed. Deja-vue to death. Then this all this slow-motion shite to make it 'super-emotional'. That coupled with supposedly 'cool' humour and - ohh my God!!? - REFERENCES TO OTHER FILMS... How soooophisticated.
Not only was I bored during 40% of the film, but I felt ripped off at the end because I only got half a film. I might download KB II but that's as far as I'll go.
I use to like Tarantino. But he's hot-headed and cliche-driven now.
the animatrix is imho better than reloaded and revolutions put together.
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
Sorry, I know EVERYONE was thinking this too... exponentially, not logaritmically
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.
Surprisingly, parent is NOT trolling. The movie DOES exist. And looks to be horrendous.... hehe.
Being in science/engineering is like playing Santa in a mall: people like the superficial image of benevolence but not the underlying reality of harsh disappointments.
What did it for me, though, was the bit about the hot bartender that is so obsessed with the superficial image of Santa that she completely ignores the underlying realities of Bad Santa and throws herself at him.
If there's hope for Bad Santa, there's gotta be hope for me.
While not really _made_ in 2003(but more or less properly(if you can call a horrible(imho) dub proper) released in North America, I think Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi(Spirited Away, that is) would definitely be the best of the movies that I'm aware of, with the other two Ghibli films released in April being very close...Don't know about the worst, but imho The Two Towers was not worth going even once(I fell victim to all the hype...not going to happen anymore :)
The question itself is too much of a potential flamebait, so perhaps I'd better not expand anything and stop here...
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...
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
Here are my top 10 of 2003 (IMDB ratings in parentheses):
10). School of Rock (7.7)
9). Kill Bill (8.2)
8). Mystic River (8.1)
7). 21 Grams (7.9)
6). Elephant (7.6)
5). Talk to Her (8.2)
4). American Splendor (8.1)
3). Gerry (6.2)
2). Spellbound (8.5)
1). Lost in Translation (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 (?)
- Girl with the Pearl Earring (7.2)
- Japanese Story (6.5)
- The Triplets of Belleville (7.2)
Movies that I can't fathom why everyone liked:
3). Better Luck Tomorrow (7.6)
2). Swimming Pool (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 (7.5)
As far as single scenes go the fight in the Frenchman's stairway was probably my favorite of the three, although the lobby scene from the first is also a masterpiece. The stairwell fight is just gorgeous, and Juno Reactor fits it well. Three was an interesting end and ok movie, but not as fulfilling as some of the theories I read on the internet, so it was a bit of a letdown. The docking battle was cool, but the club entrance felt like a rehash, and I didn't care for the final Neo/Smith fight.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
> 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.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
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!
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!.
I didn't think battlefield earth was that bad. If you consider it had the bad acting of lost in space, with the religious overtoned science fiction like battlestar galactica, and the special effects a bit sup par with Babelon 5, it's not all that bad, really.
I've seen a whole lot worse in sci-fi. Remember disney's black hole?
Ya' know, I wouldn't really say "for a lacking script" as much as "for lacking a script"...
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
watch this
I doubt it. Here's Moore's response.
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
watch this
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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.
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
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?
Best of 2003:
Worst of '03:
--
Power to the Peaceful
Also some Barbershop Pirates, a terrible production of "Speare!" (the compressed works of Shakespeare)... a supercilious desk clerk ("I'm not the pirate you're looking for"), the arms-dealing former lemonade salesman and the donning of a large augered tofu block as headwear.
Oh! And the use of baggy pirate pants to store everything.
Oh! And musical numbers. Many musical numbers.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You have to understand that the movies, as shown in the theaters, are nothing more than extended trailers for the Special Edition DVDs - these have much better pacing.
Gee, obviously you haven't seen Dance, Monkeyboy which stars some guy named Balmer.
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.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
The Matrix Revolutions, just like Reloaded, is a masterpiece in disguise and a new kind of cinema all in one: nobody can say to have completely grasped it, during a single viewing. But when many people who saw it and thought about it, talk to each other, the many veils and layers of meaning of these movies, start to unleash and things click into place. And new ideas emerge, new possibilities, and then you start to appreciate all the though that went into the creation of Reloaded and Revolutions.
These movies can not be fully appreciated by the individual, without a community or circle of friends, because they're so complex, layered and widely spanning.
That's why, isolated and (wrongly) self-confident, the movie critics have mostly slammed Revolutions, and those that liked it, they did so because of the battle scenes and special effects. None of them has even tried to understand it.
Sigged!
Five days after I saw Revolutions, I realised what it was that I saw. The third Matrix movie is, in many many ways, the first Matrix movie. It's the same story, told again, different enough so as not too be obvious, but still with enough commonalities so as to leave me quite impressed with the whole franchise. The storytelling was at it's best in the first movie to be sure, but I can certainly appreciate the vision and ambition of the trilogy as a whole. Can't wait for Revolutions to come out on DVD.
>> 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.
3 701869
The girl in Ringu probably had demonic origins too, it just wasn't in your face, just slightly hinted at.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178868/board/thread/
Covers this interpretation pretty well.
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.
David Novosel "Two roads diverged, and I - I took the one less travelled by."
Although I didn't enjoy the second film, the third film would undoubtedly stand with high ranking on it's own merit, and is only frowned upon as a sequel. It's got excellent drama, eye-catching but not pointless effects, and good action. The story is even reasonably twisty without the pretention of the second film.
People have critisized the ending, but, in general, it seems to me those are the people who had a particular ending theory based on the second film that was proven wrong. Again, if the third film hadn't been a sequel it wouldn't suffer from the same kind of criticism.
Didn't hold a candle to X2, though, IMO, because that managed to be an extremely cohesive and surpassing sequel. However, it is a great film, with all the elements that most people enjoy in a movie.
Yeah because only professional critics have the right to say what is a good film. Cinema should all be about technical excellence and artistic merit. Entertainment should never come into it. In fact if a film is enjoyable it is actually a very bad film. You didn't read the thread but felt the need to be both a psychic and a pretentious arsehole all the same.
Warning! This post may contain a pun!
> 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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> I *STILL* think they could reopen the storyline using this premise.
Yeah, adding another sequel always fixes things...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It seems to me that the original was the most liked because it had the most scenes inside the matrix where cool things can happen. Reloaded has fewer, and Revolutions even less, leading to their dislike by people who want to see more of said cool things.
Personally, I liked the series as a whole, but the original was, and still is, the best.
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.
Visceral Psyche Films
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".
:)
:). The scary thing in the original is that you never knew what the people heard on the phone. When I saw the American version and the "You are all going to suffer", I wanted to puke. Cheap thrills.
I certainly thought it was, as did everyone else I know who saw the movie
The problem I have with the American version is that it's so.... American. You can simply see that the Hollywood producers took the original, added all sort of American goodness that would make it a successful movie, and through that the movie lost most of the point.
An example is the old addage that the audiences must have a real live villain in a movie if the movie is to be successful. A good example is Sauron, who appears out of nowhere in 'Return of the King'. Another example is when a girl who never spoke, and never appeared in the original Japanese version, suddenly shows up, face and all, and starts speaking, singing, dancing and riding a fucking magical broom
Furthermore, the Japanese version is brilliant in the way it touches on the society. The Japanese society is a high-tech society. Gadgets, VCRs, phones and such are a part of everyday life more than anywhere else in the world (they even have electric toilet seats, for crying out loud!) Ringu took the most common appliances in a Japanese home (VCR, TV, phone) and turned them in instruments of terror. That is why the original had such a shocking effect, and why people were destroying their TVs after seeing the movie. I don't know of anyone who smashed their TV after watching the American version.
Furthermore, Ringu outlines the relationships between people in modern Japan. A woman seeks help from her estranged husband, who has a newer, younger girlfriend. They have a child. The interaction between these three is very interesting, and adds more tension to the plot. By watching their reactions, you can better comprehend the terror they must be feeling and adds to the impact of the movie. This concept is completely missing in the American version, which is a reason why it is so bland.
The Japanese version is also much more detailed. For exampe, in almost every frame, you can notice a clock. We are constantly reminded that the time is running out. The development of the characters is observable throughout the movie, thanks to excellent acting. And I don't think you understood at all the ending of Ringu, if you don't think that there is a twist there. Dude, there is a huge moral dilemma left in your stomach after the movie. But maybe you think that freeing a roaming demon (no connection to reality whatsoever) is more horrible than brutally murdering your own grandfather.
> 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.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Um, because it's French. You know, like, from France. French. Get it?
What happened, you ask? It's hard to even compare these trilogies. The other has two very talented, young guns putting their lifelong influence on popular culture into screen, and the other has one of the best fantasy novels behind the story. If Wachowskis had the LotR-quality script to make a film of, I think they would've made it to the end. Now, the great deal of the best thoughts was already in the first part, the others were merely warming on it's afterglow.
I were on the impression, that the first part was made as an independent film, that is, they didn't know if there were to be any sequels. Naturally, the story became a little bit unbalanced. Stuff was merely added to the end (the sequels). It's all about the story...
I agree. I saw the second Matrix film on DVD and had to "rewind" (or whatever it is you do with DVDs) several times so I could make out what was being said. So I got a lot out of the film because I could follow what was going on.
In a cinema, I think it would all wash over you - you'd be so phazed by the fight scenes that the dialog/philosophy would pass you by.
Just my 2p
.
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
(and I also wanted to point out that...)
The movies serve as a beautiful and epic-scale rendition of Tolkein's story: they "stand-on-their-own" as works of art though fully appreciating them requires being familiar with a prior work of art.
Foo?
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.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
The ending of the first movie ruined the whole movie. There are lots easier ways of creating a battery than using humans. It just didn't make any sense. I never bothered to watch the sequels.
History is so yesterday!
The Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions are obviously a completely different movie from the Matrix. They just share the same characters and environment in the hope of locking the spectators into a movie theater.
In the first one, Neo and Morpheus are the most important persons in the movie; in the sequel they turn out to be just small pawns in a much bigger play.
Reminds me a lot of Rambo. First blood was an excellent movie with a great story and a psychological side, Rambo II and III featured the same actor playing the same character in a war movie and a completly different situation setting.
The DVD extras on "The Fellowship of the Ring" were awesome. All that stuff about the design and creation of the weapons, armor, wardrobe, etc. were fascination. The pieces showing the camera trickery, props and forced perspective used to the make the actors change sizes was extremely interesting.
One thing I get tired of is featurettes describing the graphics, which invariably show some pasty-faced geek (like me) sitting in front of a computer all day making digital jellyfish or something. Once you've seen one, you've seen 'em all, but FotR didn't dwell on that topic. They gave you the really interesting background of making the movie and you come away appreciating was an incredible amount of work went into the making of it.
I haven't dug into the extras on TTT, but I expect they'll be of the same caliber.
Another DVD with good extras was "Heartbreakers" because it had the entire performance by Sigourney Weaver singing "Back in the U.S.S.R." in a fake Russian accent, which was worth the price of the movie by itself. Actually, I found some of the cut scenes in that movie to be quite good. Often you will notice little continuity errors, or apparent callbacks to something that doesn't exist which make a lot more sense when you see the extra scenes.
Having said that though, I agree with the poster that most DVD extras aren't worth the price. I often purchase used movies from the video store, and when given the choice between VHS for $5 and DVD for $12, I invariably go for the VHS, since the DVD extras are seldom compelling. Of course, the better picture quality, etc, of DVD's is worth something too, but if I'm that interested, I've probably already bought it new.
I have found that the novelty DVD extras is wearing off and that many of these extras aren't worth the effort. However, one thing I do really enjoy is the audio commentary. For instance, the audio commentary for "Evolution" was particularly entertaining because in addition to David Duchovney and Orlando Bloom busting on each other on screen, they were also doing it in the commentary and it was quite amusing. It's obvious they were having a lot of fun and it was enjoyable to hear. The audio commentary for the Simpsons DVD's is also really excellent because you learn a lot of background behind the show. Unfortunately, for Futurama, by season 2 it became painfully obvious that they'd run out of stuff to talk about, although the presence of the actors was a great addition.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I would say X2 was not "over-hyped" and had a great plot. They actually created a movie which was as good as the original, and I have to respect that.
Now, I haven't seen ROTK, which I will be at 9PM tonight, so everything could change...
X2 has my vote, for now.
I think the stories as they stand were OK, but could have worked a lot better if they'd made just a couple changes. Things started going downhill as soon as they tried to explain Neo's abilities with 'magic' rather than some unparalleled ability to interface with machines.
SO:
At the end of Reloaded, before Morpheus' ship is blown, Neo - while still jacked in -- wakes up because of the commotion in the ship, and how they're all about to be blown up in the 'real' world. This is definitely unusual - most people can't be aware in both the Matrix and the real world at the same time. But The One can! Since he is still connected to the machine world, he can see both the 'real' and the electronic or 'matrix' versions of the sentinals. Using his matrix hacking skills, like at the end of movie 1, he mucks up the machines' processes. But, the shock of handling sensory input from both worlds sends him into a coma.
So then, in revolutions, things can work pretty much as they do now. When Neo wakes up, he realizes he can stay jacked in all the time. Almost none (if any -- it's been a while since I saw it) of the scenes in the movie where he sees the 'red' matrix are outside of a ship where he'd have access to a rig. Personally, I'd change the dock battle, because however cool it looked, all those sentinals would have swarmed over the humans in an open space like that. Why did they stay in formation?
A few other changes, not so much plot revision:
In reloaded, the first multi-Smith fight. At that point, Smith had learned how to replicate himself, but hadn't absorbed any 'major' characters we know of. The most powerful were probably agents. So why could he fight any more effectively than in Matrix 1? That scene could have been way cooler if Neo was ripping the Smiths apart, but there were so many that he makes no progress, and eventually has to leave. As it was, the scene was almost boring. If there are hundreds of Smiths, and all of them are invulnerable, why did he stick around so long? Later, when Smith starts absorbing more A-list matrix players, he becomes as tough (or tougher) than Neo. Then, the overwhelming force of the legion Smiths is much more apparent.
I also wanted to see what happened to the french guy (I'm not going to try to spell his name...I'll call him M). Did Smith get him? It's implied, since Smith gets everyone in the Matrix...unless M uses his train man to escape the Matrix. It would have been cool to see a bit of the machine world as M escapes, to see the impact the Smith revolt is having there, and hint at some of the turmoil in the machine world that leads to them being willing to deal with a human later.
Anyway, the stories could remain almost untouched but not rely on 'magic' to explain the events.
You may not be bothered by bad dialogue and
lack of continuity, but both issues remain
aspects of a poor film. The first Matrix movie
committed the fewest sins in this regard. The
dialogue was many times poorly written, but you
could follow the movie from start to finish,
and the action scenes at least had a purpose.
In the second movie, nearly every action scene
served only to show off special effects, and
the dialogue was terrible. The third movie had
a little more purpsoe to it's scenes, but it
still had major issues with common sense and
horrible dialogue.
The Matrix movies pale in comparison to any truly
good movies. They certianly aren't masterpieces.
The Seven Samurai is a masterpiece. The Usual
Suspects is a masterpiece. The Matrix movies are
wads of special effects run through an obfuscated
Perl generator of inanely cryptic dialogue.
"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."
They've got three in there, none of which were actually rendered, just storyboarded. The first was just a different intro, didn't add much, but the other two were incredibly funny. They were put in as pitch sessions, with the writer showing the storyboards to the rest of the department, filling in all the voices himself, a really creative way to do the extras on the DVD.
Both were deleted, incidentally, because they had jokes that the kids wouldn't have gotten, but the adults would have laughed their asses off at.
-T
I agree. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was awesome, but not realistic. But that was not meant to be realistic. Same with Kill Bill, which I really liked. That animation sequence in the middle was cool, and the way he went to black and white took some of the "blood" out of the shots.
Oh, back to my point. You want a real martial arts movie? The Last Samurai. Fan-fucking-tastic movie. I was a little disappointed at the last few scenes, and the way they couldn't leave well enough alone. They always have to Hollywood the fucking ending, just like in Cast Away. But The Last Samurai was really good, and very realistic. Kill Bill had a lot of good techniques, but Uma Thurman just wasn't believable with the sword. Many times she held it incorrectly (like a baseball bat). But in TLS, they covered everything pretty well. There were a few technicalities I caught (with the ninjas), but I can give them a little leeway because they did such a good job with the rest of it.
I know it is Tom Cruise, but go see it. It gets my vote for one of the year's best.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
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.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
The BBC radio adaptation of Lord of The Rings does a much better job with the characterization and story than the movies.
You'll fall in love with characters from the radio play that just fall flat in the movies.
I'm a big Pixar/Toy Story fan, and I really liked Nemo too. But I happened to rent both DVDs a week apart and think that Ice Age (2002)really won out. It's made by Fox Home Entertainment, and not Pixar, but they really nailed it on the animation, the sweet story, the subtle adult humor, etc. It has more of a Monsters flair, which was also great. The second DVD, for those into animation, includes multimode cuts of the movie - showing how the animation is framed in before the finished product. I was really impressed and don't think the movie got a fair shake competing with Pixar.
This one kid next to me was like, "What if he wakes up in front of his monitor." I felt the urge to show how violent video games have made me. ;)
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
I'm risking burning off all my karma in one glorious flash, but this has been nagging at me for a very long time.
I've heard many peers whose opinions I typically respect, as well as many ignorant trolls claim the Matrix trilogy was shit the instant it became a trilogy. Really, I think people should step off their holy soap-boxes and consider for just one moment what makes the first movie better than the second or third.
Looking back on the first movie, very little happens. Very little is revealed. The movie was written with vague exchange after vague exchange, with the bulk of the movie taken up by a communal admiration of visuals. What were the brilliant performances from the Matrix? Lawrence Fishburn as an educated black man who gets Neo to take drugs, get scared by lightning, jump off a building (all the cool kids are doing it...), and get his ass handed to him? Is that air you're breathing? Well, presumably yes. Unless I'm not breathing at all in which case this isn't happening. Next question?
Of the cast of the Matrix, how many survive? Perhaps that's the best part of the movie, that the actors each have no more than a few lines (perhaps as profound as "It's my way or the highway" or even "Shut up". Then again, there's Cipher, who gives us "Ignorance is bliss"). Do Epoch and Switch believe in anything? If programs can go against their programming, why does Smith even bother chasing people? Why not just decompile himself?
The Matrix was a great sci-fi movie. I'm not disputing that--I own it and adore it. However, I don't watch The Matrix to find Jesus. It's not a Platonic dialogue, and it's not a chapter of the Tao Te Ching. I watch The Matrix because I enjoy science fiction. As a science fiction movie it is far more than adequate; it has action, suspense, stunning visuals, and not enough character development to make you question anything.
Why do I then think Reloaded and Revolutions are adequate as well? Reloaded is the substance that was missing from the Matrix...the characters we have are developed and we see that they are flawed. Revolutions lets these characters follow their own paths and do what they need to do. Reeves did a great job as the patchwork messiah of a terribly...human civilization. Bad actor jokes notwithstanding, he is confused, unsure, and underneath it all human. He doesn't always have a witty comeback, and sometimes he has to play superhero--if I were in that position I might not stay sane at all considering that I have a foot-long spike in my head that's letting me fight with an invincible program who sneers like no other, and the fate of humanity rests on my ability to think the crap out of a RAM chip somewhere. He never claims he's brilliant--he's a programmer for some huge corporation (maybe he's on the team that codes rpc for Windows), and he never claims he's wise--look how he just follows a squad of goth pirates just because his computer told him.
The Matrix wasn't a perfect movie. I don't understand how one can compare the sequels to the original and come out with an unfavorable opinion. The trolls who endlessly rail against the sequels don't have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to the superiority of the original. They're movies, not religion. If they are canon to you, perhaps you should invest your faith in a religion less lacking in...substance.
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.
In the first movie, Morpheus says that Neo feels that there is something wrong with the world and that he (Neo) has known this all his life. He (again, Neo) has always been semi-aware of the two worlds.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Honestly, it's not that deep. Just because you didn't get it the first time doesn't mean that others can't. If you've taken any intro philosophy courses or even had a conversation with a friend while stoned, you've probably covered 99% of what they blabbed on about in the movies.
It's nice that they opened you up to these things, but they're nothing but B-movies with expensive effects.
The problem w/ the second movie (I liked it, but I mean the reason it wasn't as good as the first) is that it took all the awesome philosophical and epistemilogical questions that were subtley (sp?) presented in the first one, and put them into dialog that was very hard for some people to follow. Whle the first movie was cool because you could watch it over and notice new things, the second you had to watch over to make sure you caught all the unnecessarily wordy dialog. I don't know how they could have represented the battle between determinism/causality and free will in a better way, but I feel it was quite lazy to do it by just having Morpheus and the Merovingian talk to each other about it.
If I had a choice between seeign Matrix Revolutions again on the big screen and sitting through Return of the King, I'd go for the Matrix.
2003 faves:
X-men 2 - 9.5/10 I loved X-1 and I think X-2 was a great expansion of the movie incarnation of the franchise.
Finding Nemo - 9/10 Saw it opening weekend in a digital theater in Orlando. It looked AMAZING. I also loved Ellen DeGeneres' surprisingly touching performance. I'm getting all verplempkt now. :sniff:
Matix Reloaded - 8/10 The Architect scene KILLED the movie. I suppose he was necessary, but I never expected the Big Showdown in Reloaded to give me SAT flashbacks. Ergo, the dialogue was as interminable as it was pontifical, and should have been assiduously avoided.
Matrix Revolutions - 9/10!! OMG, I loved this movie. I don't understand why so many people blew it off. The battle for Zion was much better that anything I expected, and the inevitavle conlcusion (imo) [mostly] worked really well.
Lord of the Rings: Return of the Shakey-Cam - 8/10 :-(
Everything in the movie looks great, until the swordfights start. "Quick cuts between scenes with lots of camera shaking is no basis for an onscreen sword fight."
I blame the 2nd or 3rd Unit Director who was probably in charge of that aspect of the production. Also, I knew about the 6 or 7 endings, but I didn't knw that I'd be waiting for about 50 minutes for the film to really kick in to gear.
Elf - 8.5/10 Cuter and less annoying than I expected. it gave me some Chirstmas Spirit.
Bad Santa - 7/10
He was a REALLY bad santa. I mostly like the movie, but some parts were just too crude and gross for me.
Bend it Like Beckham - 9/10
Whale Rider - 8.5/10
Timeline - 7.7/8
(Belive it or not. The production had a LOT of problems and the plot is a bit confused, but for some reason I really enjoyed it)
Least Favorite:
Pirates of the Caribbean - 6.8/10
I didn't HATE it, but it didn't really impress me. I was right there with the flick up until the pirates invaded the port town.
Underworld - 6.5/10.
The trailer looked SO amazing (for a Goth-ey Matrix rip off) The movie was pretty impressive for the budget, but it wasn't really as polished as it should have been.
Kill Bill vol. 1 - 4/10
All the Cool Kids love Tarantino. I just think he was sadisticly tortured too many times in school and is now fixated on that. If you thought the Stormtroopers in Star Wars had bad aim, take a look and the crowd of swordsmen throwing their limbs at Uma Thurman.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
---
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
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).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
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!"
SQUEAK, the Death of Rats explained.
I took my son to see the Hulk because he begged me and I had heard the CGI was great, they had spent a lot of time in post production getting it right and I had heard Ang Lee was this great filmaker (I had not seen Crouching Tiger), etc.
It was HORRID. I have never seen such a piece of crap. The only thing that was good was the part where he changes into the Hulk. Not only did I want to throw something at the screen, I felt like I had 2 hours of my time stolen from me. I thought the director should be put in jail for letting such a total piece of crap loose on the world.
The dialog sucked, sucked, sucked. Jennifer Connelly was completely wasted in this movie. She had bad hair, bad clothes, worse lines.
The guy playing David Banner was wooden, worse lines, looked like he would trip over himself just walking around.
Nick Nolte was OK, but his character was over the top. When he turned into that water creature, that didn't make any sense. He should have turned into Magneto.
The general's character probably had the worst lines, and he was not believeable, nor was the defense contractor that wanted to kill the Hulk.
I couldn't buy Jennifer Connelly's character EVER having a relationship with Banner. I couldn't buy the whole act of Banner not having any feelings. Maybe the old comics went into this, but I was used to the Bill Bixby character more and thought it was more believable. At least Lou Farigno wasn't super duper sized Hulk. The movie Hulk was too much over the top.
I didn't like the way they jumped around in the timeline. The movie would have been better told from beginning to end and with out the POOR flashbacks.
The dog fight scene sucked and made little sense. If Banner's dad wanted to kill him because he was afraid of what he had become, why not get up close and kill him and then kill himself. That would make more sense. Also, why would he then try to turn himself into a super being?
Hulk was able to jump WAAAY too far. Physics defied.
There was so much wrong here I can't go into it all. The only redeeming value the movie had was the closing scene.
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
I agree. I personally thought the Matrix Trilogy was brilliant.
If the total extent of your education in math is algebra, then calculus looks like garbage. But it's not.
25% of the people who watched The Matrix didn't get it.
50% of the people who watched Reloaded didn't get it.
75% of the people who watched Revolutions didn't get it.
This doesn't suprise me. Most people don't get the subtleties of Shakespeare, but his work is considered brilliant because they've been told so.
It's taken for granted.
I can actually picture some minor lord in 1602 telling his friends, "You know, I liked Hamlet and all, and the blood and swordfights were great, but it just wasn't that deep."
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle