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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
shouldn't this be a poll?
litigious bastards
suck it sco!
3 words:
Bubba. Ho. Tep.
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."
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.
I've got this Paris Hilton mpeg, see, and...
wow. a thread designed just for trolling. interesting concept.
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.
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.
And what's wrong with that?
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
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.
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.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
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)
> 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.
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
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."