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

That surprise was very effective- I remember replaying the soundtrack over and over for that one moment as it was linked so well in audiences' memories.

 

September & October 2006

Notable releases: (listed in release order)

September:
-Crank
-Crossover
-The Wicker Man
-The Covenant
-Hollywoodland
-The Protector/Warrior King/Tom-Yum-Goong
-The Black Dahlia
-Everyone's Hero
-Gridiron Gang
-The Last Kiss
-Ultraman Mebius & Ultraman Brothers
-All the King's Men
-Fearless
-Flyboys
-Jackass Number Two
-Facing the Giants
-The Guardian
-Open Season
-School for Scoundrels
-The Queen

October:
-The Departed
-Employee of the Month
-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
-Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
-The Grudge 2
-Man of the Year
-The Marine
-One Night with the King
-Flags of Our Fathers
-Flicka
-Marie Antoinette
-The Prestige
-Babel
-Catch a Fire
-Saw III

T2Q Comments:

-Crank: Though not yet the bat****-insane gloriousness of the sequel, this one is still a solid Statham flick with enough craziness to make it plausibly in the same universe/series as it's sequel. It's just crassly fun.

-The Wicker Man: Haven't seen this yet, since it's apparently horrible- but has any other movie ever become as famous for a line in a deleted scene ("NOT THE BEES!!") as this movie?

-The Covenant: Tried to be "The Craft"-For-Boys, but it generally sucked. I saw it, as I'm a sucker for telekinetic character battles, but even there it didn't really deliver (there's really only one such fight at the end and it's nothing particularly noteworthy).

-The Protector/Warrior King/Tom-Yum-Goong: This would be the Tony Jaa movie with that awesome single-take staircase fight. More plot than Jaa's previous Ong Bak. Decent martial arts flick, storywise. Jaa is impressive, as always, though. Really, people, don't **** with Jaa's elephants.

-Fearless: Jet Li's final Wushu epic. I liked this one.

-Flyboys: Rare modern WWI film focusing on the air battles of the conflict. Worth a rental but sadly nothing particularly noteworthy beyond less-covered subject matter.

-The Departed: I'm not a huge fan of Scorsese's films, or of mob films/shows in general, but this one is definitely the exception to the rule. Really kick-ass flick, great cast & story and it feels focused, never meandering. Plus it introduced me to the Dropkick Murphys.

-The Prestige: If you pay attention, there's a secret message in the film: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN HAS COME TO KICK ALL OF OUR ASSES.

-Babel: Interesting film, but not one I'd want to see more than once. the Japanese plotline is the most effective, with the Morocco one rotating between effective and not. The Mexican one has too many unsympathetic choices made to be too engaging, and though characters get what they deserve, tit does, to it's credit, manage to create a dash of sympathy.

-Saw III: The weakest of the first three films (but not of the series), but the start of turning Jigsaw into an antihero, and defining the differences between John and Amanda really elevates the storyline beyond the weaker traps-maze element. The ending, even at the time it was released, made you wonder just how the hell they were going to make all those sequels they had already announced.



Movies I Want See
-All the King's Men
-Employee of the Month
-Flags of Our Fathers
-The Grudge 2
-The Guardian
-Hollywoodland
-Jackass Number Two
-The Marine (maybe)
-One Night with the King (maybe)
-The Queen
-School for Scoundrels
-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
-The Wicker Man


Overall Trends:

A lot of noir-ish crime drama flicks this time around. We're also seeing sequels/prequels to recent fair (as opposed to the usual Hollywood sequel machine)- Grudge, Jackass, TCSM, Saw, etc. Efforts to turn John Cena into an action star via The Marine doesn't quite work out as well as the WWE may have hoped for.

 

Maybe I'll take Dahlia off my lsit- I recall being annoyed by the trailer being overplayed. I thought perhaps I'd give it another chance with time putting some distance between the trailer and me.

I may trim Catch a Fire as well- I was on the fence about that one too.

Out of curiosity- did you like the remake Chainsaw? Or just dislike the prequel? I was able to enjoy the remake, so I;'m curious how they compare.

David Bowie was certainly a huge surprise in The Prestige. if they ever make a live action Atomic Robo movie, I hope they'll consider using Bowie as Tesla again, even if the comic is an entirely different tone of story.

 

That actually makes it sound better than it probably is .

 

I think I've missed a few of these updates but here's this batch.
-The Queen
Great film. Well played overall, and an interesting story. It actually made me quite sympatethic towards to the royal family, or as Tony Blair says in the film. "can't someone save them from themselves?". Now this is actually part two. There is a first made for TV-film called "The Deal" which is about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown striking a deal that allows Blair to be the next labour leader, with Brown as his follower. It was said that there were going to be a third film as well, to make it a Blair trilogy, but that hasn't happened yet. The Deal isn't as good though, and I think what makes The Queen better is the switching of focus during the film, between Blair and the queen.

-Marie Antoinette
I love this film. I really liked the idea of taking a historical costume drama and set it to modern music, to really show more of what it was like emotionally at the French court, even if that means that it isn't historically correct. It also ties in with Coppoloas other films, The Virging Suicides and Lost in Translation, to give a protrait of young, lost girls.

 

You're welcome to backtrack .

 

So here's my list for Spring/summer 2006

The Da Vinci Code
I feel like I'm the only who hasn't read book. The film was decent enough to watch once.

Over the Hedge
I'm torn with this one. I love the comic it's based on, and compared to that this was a very sugarcoated story. On the ohter hand it is a good story if you don't compare it. So worth seeing.

X-Men: The Last Stand
It's worth seeing so that you get an ending to the trilogy, but so much weaker than X2.

Cars
Boring, predictable, and I can't understand how the merchandise can be so popular. In fact Cars 2 seems to be more interesting than the original.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
It's hard to follow up a big success, but I think they managed pretty well. It's not as good as the first, but there are some brilliant moments. I think the biggest mistake though was to reveal Barbossa's come-back. I think they should have just shown his boots and then stop, it would have been so much fun speculating about the ending, compared to what we got.

Little Miss Sunshine
A wonderful cute film, it's a little ensemble master piece, and eventhough it's pretty dark it's heartwarming.

 

You don't see how toy cars with cute faces on them wouldn't be appealing merchandise to kids? Look at things like Thomas the Tank Engine, same basic idea.

 

November & December 2006

Notable releases: (listed in release order)

November:
-Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
-Flushed Away
-The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
-Volver
-A Good Year
-Harsh Times
-The Return
-Stranger Than Fiction
-Bobby
-Casino Royale
-For Your Consideration
-Happy Feet
-Let's Go to Prison
-Deck the Halls
-Déjà Vu
-The Fountain
-Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

December:
-The Nativity Story
-Turistas
-Van Wilder 2: Rise of the Taj
-Apocalypto
-Blood Diamond
-The Holiday
-Unaccompanied Minors
-Charlotte's Web
-Dreamgirls
-Eragon
-The Pursuit of Happyness
-Letters from Iwo Jima
-Rocky Balboa
-Curse of the Golden Flower
-The Good Shepherd
-Night at the Museum
-We Are Marshall
-Black Christmas
-Children of Men
-Notes on a Scandal
-Arthur and the Invisibles
-Pan's Labyrinth


T2Q Comments:

-Borat: Crude but ridiculously funny.

-The Return: Gellar seemingly left The Grudge series...to appear in another horror film that looked like..The Grudge.

-Stranger Than Fiction: Really liked this one- clever concept.

-Casino Royale: Great Bond flick. Amazingly awesome theme song. Craig rocked. Maybe a bit long towards the end, though.

-Déjà Vu: Fun Scott/Dezel action piece with a neat sci-fi element. Kinda want to do a double feature of this and Virtuosity.

-The Fountain: Visually great, but while the trailer presented a very interesting concept, the actual film has almost no trace of it- what we get is largely confusing and exceedingly dull. You can try to explain it to justify the film, but there's no point trying to do so to such a boring film.

-Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny: Amusing, though not classic- but the D's humor and music is on display well, plus Dave Grohl as the Devil!

-Blood Diamond: Solid drama with a good cast.

-Eragon: Star Wars meets Dragonheart meets crap. Is Jeremy irons contractually obligated to appear in every bad fantasy movie?

-Rocky Balboa: A great sendoff to the character bringing the series full circle with a lot of heart. It is also quite surreal seeing Rocky "on ESPN".

-Night at the Museum: Fun family flick.

-We Are Marshall: The 70 billionth inspirational football movie that makes you tired of the genre before the trailer is over.

-Children of Men: Very good flick, some awesome shots in there.

-Pan's Labyrinth: Great imagination and a pretty good fantasy concept. I don't think it comes together quite as well as other people seem to, but it's still worth seeing nonetheless.


Movies I (Probably) Want See
-Apocalypto
-Bobby
-Curse of the Golden Flower
-Flushed Away
-For Your Consideration
-The Good Shepherd
-Happy Feet
-Harsh Times
-Letters from Iwo Jima

Overall Trends:

Flushed Away was the Wallce & Gommit producers first CGI film (as opposed to stop motion). The Nativity Story was probably hoping to exploit religious audiences ala Passion of the Christ, though it wasn't anywhere near as successful in that regard. Mel Gibson goes insane.

 

Del Toro.

 

-Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
I'm one of those who don't get. There are some funny moments, but they are buried under a lot of waste.

-Casino Royale
Decent action film, turned me totally off the new Bond franchise though.

-The Holiday
A totally surprise when I saw. A nice holiday film, when you have seen Love Actually too many times and want to have some diversity.

-Dreamgirls
Ok, seen it once, don't think I'll see it again.

-Eragon
A low point in the fantasy trend, take whatever clichés you have and stack them on top of each other.

-Night at the Museum
I've only seen the end of it, and that was in a bad dubbed version, since then I've wanted to see the whole film.

-Children of Men
Great film!

-Pan's Labyrinth
A better take on the fantasy trend. I'm not a fan, but it was a very powerful film, and I cried a lot in the end.

 

The year 2006 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!)
-Casino Royale
-Clerks II
-Crank
-The Departed
-The Descent
-The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
-Mission: Impossible III
-Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
-The Prestige
-Rocky Balboa
-Superman Returns
-V for Vendetta

Worth Seeing a Few Times: (aka: maybe get the DVD)
-Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
-Children of Men
-Night at the Museum
-Pan's Labyrinth
-Saw III
-Snakes on a Plane
-Stranger Than Fiction
-Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
-Underworld: Evolution

Worth Seeing Once: (aka: rent it or get it in the $5 bin at Best Buy or Walmart)
-Babel
-Blood Diamond
-Cars
-Click
-The Da Vinci Code
-Déjà Vu
-Firewall
-Little Miss Sunshine
-Miami Vice
-Silent Hill
-Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
-X-Men: The Last Stand

If It's on Cable: (aka: not completely awful, but no need to intentionally seek it out)
-Beerfest
-Final Destination 3
-Flyboys
-Lady in the Water
-Poseidon
-The Protector/Warrior King/Tom-Yum-Goong
-Scary Movie 4
-The Sentinel

List of Films I Still (Probably) Want To See:
-Accepted
-All the King's Men
-Annapolis
-Apocalypto
-Bobby
-Curse of the Golden Flower
-Date Movie (yes, I realize it won't be good)
-Employee of the Month
-Flags of Our Fathers
-Flushed Away
-For Your Consideration
-Freedomland
-The Good Shepherd
-Grandma's Boy
-The Grudge 2
-The Guardian
-Harsh Times
-Happy Feet
-Hollywoodland
-The Hills Have Eyes
-Hostel
-Ice Age: The Meltdown
-The Illusionist
-Inside Man
-Invincible
-Jackass Number Two
-The Lake House
-Letters from Iwo Jima
-Lucky Number Slevin
-The Marine (maybe)
-Monster House
-My Super Ex-Girlfriend
-The Night Listener
-The Omen
-One Night with the King (maybe)
-Pulse (probably bad, but still)
-The Queen
-Running Scared
-School for Scoundrels
-Slither
-Stay Alive
-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
-Thank You for Smoking
-Ultraviolet
-United 93
-When a Stranger Calls
-The Wicker Man
-World Trade Center

..wow, more than twice as many as 2005. I wonder if I'm just getting more lax with stuff like likely guilty pleasures or if simply more films slipped through the cracks past me in 2006.

 

Worth Keeping
-Little Miss Sunshine
-The Queen
-Marie Antoinette
-The Holiday

Worth Seeing a few times

-Inside Man
-Ice Age: The Meltdown
-Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
-Children of Men
-Pan's Labyrinth

Worth Seeing once
-V for Vendetta
-American Dreamz
-The Da Vinci Code
-Over the Hedge
-X-Men: The Last Stand
-Cars
-Dreamgirls

If it's on cable
-Eragon
-Casino Royale


Films I still want to see
-Tristan and Isolde
-Nanny McPhee
-The Devil Wears Prada
-The Prestige
-Happy Feet
-Blood Diamond
-Letters from Iwo Jima
-Curse of the Golden Flower
-Night at the Museum

 

January & February 2007

Notable releases: (listed in release order)

January:
-Code Name: The Cleaner
-Freedom Writers
-Happily N'Ever After
-Alpha Dog
-Primeval
-Stomp the Yard
-The Hitcher
-Blood & Chocolate
-Catch and Release
-Epic Movie
-Smokin' Aces

February:
-Because I Said So
-The Messengers
-Hannibal Rising
-Norbit
-Daddy's Little Girls
-Music and Lyrics
-Breach
-Bridge to Terabithia
-Ghost Rider
-The Abandoned
-Amazing Grace
-The Astronaut Farmer
-The Number 23
-Reno 911!: Miami


T2Q Comments:
-Blood & Chocolate: It is only January, and the winner for the worst title of the year goes to... not that the film looked good, but Aslan-on-a-stick, that's an awful title! I remember the trailer playing and as soon as the title came up, the audience burst into laughter with a mild mix of "WTF?!"s.

-Smokin' Aces: An awesome, awesome flick. Great cast, some brutal shoot outs mixed with some dark humor.

-Hannibal Rising: I actually forgot this movie existed. Before I made this list tonight, if you had asked me how many Hannibal films had been made, I honestly would have told you 3-plus-Manhunter. Whats worse is I think I actually saw this, but I can't tell for certain- yet, given the content, that's an astounding thing to occur- we're not talking about another crime/thriller featuring Crowe, Pacino or Denzel that can blur together in the long run, this is Hannibal Lector we're talking about (albeit it one minus Hopkins).

-Norbit: Eddie Murphy, good lord, man, what happened? Never got past the trailer.

-Ghost Rider: While there are some good elements here (Peter Fonda as the Devil, Sam Elliott as a former Rider, as well as the effects), they are hampered by some severe problems, mostly the awful villain (Wes Bentley as Blackheart) which has no gravitas or pull (which could have possibly salvaged things somewhat), but some dumb elements too (such as Elliot's "one last ride" which is only a transition..gee, maybe you shoulda saved that so you could help fight the bad guy instead?). Some very good score pieces here though, gotta remember to track down that CD...

-The Number 23: Good premise to base a film around, and Carrey's performance is quite good, but the film is just awful.

-Reno 911!: Miami: If you liked the series, this is a good big screen installment of it. Pretty funny.


Movies I Want See
-The Astronaut Farmer
-Breach
-Bridge to Terabithia
-Epic Movie
-Freedom Writers
-The Messengers

Overall Trends:

I think it was with Norbit that people started getting sick of that generic "Red Font/White Background" being used for every crappy comedy (but especially Eddie Murphy movies). Ghost Rider's awfulness still performed decently enough to warrant a Cage-inclusion reboot/sequel. I think we're done with Hannibal films. Smokin' Aces would spawn a decent DTV sequel/prequel.