Amph Film Releases & Trends of a Decade Retrospective: The Nineties A-Z. Now Disc: 1993 D-G

The year 2003 in review- what's worth seeing (once or several times?), what's worth keeping?

Skimming back through the lists I posted, here's my personal selections (and, as always, I encourage folks to skim back through the lists and make their own):


Worth Keeping: (aka: get the DVD!)
-Daredevil
-Finding Nemo
-Kill Bill Vol. 1
-The Last Samurai
-The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
-The Matrix Reloaded
-The Matrix Revolutions
-Old School
-Once Upon a Time in Mexico
-Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
-X2: X-Men United

Worth Seeing a Few Times: (aka: maybe get the DVD)
-American Wedding
-Bad Boys II
-Bruce Almighty
-Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
-Final Destination 2
-The Italian Job
-Phone Booth
-The Rundown
-School of Rock
-S.W.A.T.
-Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
-Underworld

Worth Seeing Once: (aka: rent it or get it in the $5 bin at Best Buy or Walmart)
-2 Fast 2 Furious
-28 Days Later
-A Man Apart
-Bad Santa
-Cold Mountain
-Freddy vs. Jason
-Elf
-Identity
-Jeepers Creepers II
-Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
-Lost in Translation
-Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
-Peter Pan (going by comments here)
-Shanghai Knights
-Scary Movie 3
-Tears of the Sun
-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

If It's on Cable: (aka: not completely awful, but no need to intentionally seek it out)
-A Mighty Wind
-Anger Management
-Big Fish
-Bulletproof Monk
-The Hulk
-Matchstick Men
-Paycheck
-The Recruit
-Secondhand Lions

 

I have missed a few posts here, so I wont comment on each month, but here's my list of 2003.

Worth Keeping: (aka: get the DVD!)
Bend it like Beckham
X2: X-men united
Finding Nemo
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Love Actually
Last Samurai
Mona Lisa Smile

Worth Seeing a Few Times:
The Matrix: Reloaded
The Italian Job
The Matrix: Revolutions
Master and Commander
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Worth Seeing Once:
Brother Bear
The Life of David Gale

If It's on Cable:
View from the top
Legally Blonde 2: Red, white and blonde
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Lost in Translation
School of Rock

 

January & February 2004

Notable releases: (listed in release order)

January:
-Along Came Polly
-Teacher's Pet
-Torque
-The Butterfly Effect
-Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
-The Big Bounce
-The Perfect Score
-You Got Served

February:
-Barbershop 2: Back in Business
-Catch That Kid
-Miracle
-50 First Dates
-Against the Ropes
-Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
-EuroTrip
-Welcome to Mooseport
-The Passion of the Christ
-Club Dread
-Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
-Twisted


T2Q Comments:

Yikes, this was an abysmal two months of cinema, but a couple still managed to squeak through...

-Torque: Tried to be "Fast & the Furious- On Motorcycles!" but was too hyper-stylized to ever have a chance at connecting with viewers. It's flashy for the visuals but really nothing here.

-The Butterfly Effect: Now, this one was actually really, really good (though the alternate ending is particularly grim), and had Ashton stretching beyond teen comedy material. Very neat time travel story.

-Miracle: Though not a must-see, this is a pretty solid sports drama about a particularly neat moment in sports history.

-50 First Dates: Caught this one on video and it's not too bad- not the best of the Sandler comedies, but nor is it lost amongst the more forgettable fare he's put out as of late.

-Euro Trip: I think I liked this one more than Road Trip- it just gets to explore some more weirder territory (Matt Damon's cameo as the punk rocker for the (very quotable if you've ever worked with someone named Scott that you'd like to annoy) "Scotty Doesn't Know" song being a prime example).

-The Passion of the Christ: Never saw it. Initially considered it, but then it got caught up in the hoopla and I hate to see a movie soley based on the motivation that everyone else is. And, in the year's since, I find myself less and less enthused with Gibson's work.

-Broken Lizard's Club Dread: A strange blend of light sex comedy and slasher spoof. It sometimes works (the live-action Pac-Man sequence) and sometimes doesn't (the unkillable killer stuff at the end feels like it's from a completely different type of comedy film, like something out of the Scary Movie franchise inserted into and indie comedy).

Overall Trends:

Not much here- Passion is the only film with a notable impact on the year, and would (seemingly) continue to influence Gibon's work on his next film.

 

Maybe it was because that movie was so bad, that he finally said "I'm too old for this ****".

I actually didn't know he had retired- maybe it's just because of all the Hackman (or Hackman-like) voice overs for Lowes, and the constant rewatching of The Replacements by my dad, and the relative freshness of Enemy of the Sate in my head that it never dawned on me that he hasn't been in anything as of late.


Hell of a career, though, damn. Maybe one great project will lure him out one day so he can go out with a proper send off.

 

Oh man, I forgot about the kid Hitler

 

I can honestly say that I haven't seen a single one of those films.

 

March & April 2004

Notable releases: (listed in release order)

March:
-Hidalgo
-Starsky & Hutch
-Secret Window
-Spartan
-Dawn of the Dead
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
-Taking Lives
-Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
-Jersey Girl
-The Ladykillers
-Never Die Alone

April:
-Hellboy
-Home on the Range
-The Prince and Me
-Walking Tall
-The Alamo
-Two Brothers
-The Whole Ten Yards
-Ella Enchanted
-The Girl Next Door
-Shaun of the Dead
-Kill Bill Vol. 2
-The Punisher
-13 Going on 30
-Man on Fire
-Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius
-Envy
-Godsend
-Laws of Attraction
-Mean Girls


T2Q Comments:

Wow, these two months, besides being surprisingly packed, are a notable contrast to the dire first two months of the year.

-Hidalgo: Viggo Mortensen's first big post-LOTR push. I don't think I ever saw the whole film, but from what i did see (and the trailer), it seemed like an unsuccessful attempt to blend genres- not knowing if it wanted to be a race movie or an Indiana Jones knock-off.

-Starsky & Hutch: Do it.

-Dawn of the Dead: I confess I've never seen any of the original Dead films, but this remake was quite good- and one of the first in recent times to use the "fast zombies" angle which does add a new twist to things.

-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: What a great film. Great story, shot great and acted great. I won't go on too much here, but if you haven't seen it, make it a point to.

-Jersey Girl: Kevin Smith's first non-View-Askewverse film that gets a worse reputation than it deserves. It's by no means great, but it's a decent little light comedy- and George Carlin steals the show here.

-Hellboy: Some awesome elements stand out in an otherwise, IMO, somewhat dry and tonally unbalanced film. On the brightside, it looks like the sequel managed to improve upon what did work in this film to deliver a solid follow-up, but I haven't had the chance to catch that one yet. Still, an "ok" first try, even if it ultimately doesn't work well.

-Walking Tall: Continuing The Rundown's thrust of trying to launch The Rock's action career. This was a decent flick/remake, but nothing particularly noteworthy.

-The Girl Next Door: Amusing b-grade teen comedy. The film student continually referring to his crew as his "minions" being the element I particularly took away from this flick .

-Kill Bill Vol. 2: As we discussed in Vengeance Week, a great flick.

-The Punisher: Another film I went into in great detail in Vengeance Week- suffice it to say, while not a faithful adaptation, it was a solid revenge film that took an interesting psychological manipulation approach to "punishment" beyond just a typical run-and-gun solution.

-13 Going on 30: Big hit for Jennifer Garner, but not one I saw.

-Man on Fire: I definitely meant to catch this one but never did. Anyone catch it?

-Envy: the second subpar Stiller comedy of the year (after Along Came Polly)

-Mean Girls: A hit for Lohan and McAdams, but also a big win for writer/co-star Tina Fey. Never saw it though, as tempting as Fey is.

Overall Trends:

Stiller finds mild success (Starsky & Hutch) amongst a few bombs (Polly, Envy), but one can't help but think that maybe his bubble popped around here.

The Rock's action career is still trying to find traction (and will seemingly divert towards family comedy for a few years soon, after Doom).

The Punisher would find trouble getting a sequel going, which would lead to direction & writing issues that would lead to Thomas Jane reluctantly abandoning the franchise, leading to an awful sequel that will likely lead to a new reboot.

The last standalone film from Tarintino for half a decade. Lohan and Graner find some more bankability- and one can't help but think Fey's success here enhanced her pull from SNL to land her success with 30 Rock. Denzel seems to have found that Tony Scott comfort zone style by now (I think Denzel now has a contractual obligation to have one of the Scott brothers direct every one of his films, or at least have the film shot and promoted as if it was ).

 

Sadly I haven't seen Shaun of the Dead yet, though I'm sure I'll like it when i get around to doing so.

Good observation- the Charlies Angels films also fall into that pattern around the same timeframe.

And yet there still seem to be live action (albeit recasted) Scooby movies being made, even if they're straight to video or Cartoon Network. I guess it's more an testament to the enduring effectiveness with kids of the Scooby franchise than the quality of such productions.

Was it their last before Frog? didn't they have the carrier pidgeon one with Ewna McGreggor? But, yeah, Range looked so terribly average.

He works well as the lead in an ensemble cast, if paired with the right material. He was excellent as the lead on Tv for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, for example.

 

I wonder what I was doing these months, I clearly didn't go to the movies. The only one I have seen is Hidalgo, and it's a decent film if you like Viggo Mortensen. A typical "catch it if it's on TV" film.

 

Definitely make a point to see Eternal Sunshine.