For Discussion: My Top 20 Movies of 2003

[rf_ucsd]

Unless those Acadamy people are different this year, there is no way Return of the King will win this year.

 

Why do you say that? I mean, I can see why. I'm interesting in why you say it.

 

Because the Academey is very traditional and likes to vote for movies such as movies based on Shakespeare (like the one w/ Gwyneth Paltrow) or boring movies like The Last Emperor or movies that say something in it or are creative with the plot like that American something movie with Kevin Spacey in it. Lol. I forget all the movies names!

I think that ROTK spent a lot of time on action and on scenery for the viewers. Don't know how much of an impact this movie really makes. I'm not sure how the Academy will respond, but I think they will pick something that hasn't made millions of dollars. There were also some

corny scenes and such. Don't how they will react to that.

But I really have no idea :/

 

Good observations around.

 

RotK is a movie on a scale of no other before it. Previous examples might not hold.

 

Also, it wasn't too long Gladiator won for best picture.

[soleil]

Darn. Forgot about Gladiator. But that movie won b/c everything else sucked that year!

[rf_ucsd]

That and Dreamworks is really freaking powerful.

[soleil]

Are they the mafia of the academy?

[rf_ucsd]

They'd have to be to get Russell Crowe the Oscar that year over Denzel Washington ...

 

... but it all worked out the next year when Denzel won over Russell when Crowe should have won for A Beautiful Mind.

[soleil]

oh yes, i liked a beautiful mind more than gladiator. but i did like the gory stuff in gladiator. did braveheart win anything. 'cause that movie was better than gladiator. i personally think denzel could've won the award for another movie and not the one he won that year.

 

halle berry went crazy that year.

 

:D

[Majson]

Crowe god the oscar for gladiator because A)it was a good solid emotional performance B) because the year before he was even more amazing in "the insider" for which he out acted al pacino (how rare is that)

 

anyway

 

1. Return of the King

2. Mystic River

3. 21 Grams

4. Cold Mountain

5. The Barbarian Invasions

6. Big Fish

7. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

8. Lost in Translation

9. Elf

10. The Last Samurai

11. Kill Bill, Vol. 1

12. Intolerable Cruelty

13. Mona Lisa Smile

14. The Missing

15. Something's Got to Give

16. School of Rock

17. Love Actually

18. X2: X-Men United

19. My Life Without Me

20. The Matrix Reloaded

 

i have so many problems with this list.

 

Forone,ROTK, such an over-rated pile dung in my personal opinion. The plot and story, like the books beforehand, areover-polluted. Too much time is wasted on stupid scnery shots. The movie isover-long, the SFX are nothing special(and a big marketing ploy ec is based around the sfx for some reason). The acting isn't that great. And while i do respect Jackson for attempting something so bold, and for trying to be this brave...it also has to be said that it's the fanboys who rate this film etc.

 

Personally i have never felt anything for the characters, never got involved in the story, never enjoyed whatis aw, just finding it more and more pointless and boring. Any good movie, in my view, should makeyou feel something for the charaters, should engage you, should captivate you..none of the LOTrfilms have done that, and so i cannot and will not ever put it in my top lists for anything.

 

anyways....the matrixc was also a huge over-rated pile of uber dung also, but like the LOTr trilogy i never felt for any of the characters or the storyline, which i've seen done better with a morehuman side to it before.

 

my list, although it wont hold the same "wow" factor you have, is my list and i will stae why for each one

 

(there is no order as i beleive this year to be downright awful in ters of good film releases)

 

NARC

 

twograbbing perfornaces from the leads, with a very plot centred story, that gives the characters chance to grow, to blend the two is a raritythese days. I figured parts of it out, as that's what ti leads you to belive, but you're always left guessing "is this the right answer?" and"did that really happen?"

 

The Pianist

 

this wasan utterly grabbing movie, very quiet performance from Brody but believable and wellacted. Not since Shindlers List has so many emotions been brought up by a war film (i find saving private ryan to be boring and lacking in emotion). A wonderful effort, with amazing scope and horrible images.

 

Dark Blue

 

a wonderful performance from Kurt Russel, and in very much the styleof LA confidential. Shamefully missed at the box office, but it's a solid story, based on true events and solidly acted. Some slightly boring points true but it's oozing with goodness :)

 

Life Of David Gale

 

Ok, biased here because i'm a huge kevin spacey fan. Ad this got such bad reviews, i couldn't udnerstand why. Two very brilliant, very believableperformances from it's two big stars. With an ending that is quite easy to spot, it doesn't make it any worsehow-ever.A clever film, solidly told and acted. I like it

 

Confidence

 

It wont win any awards, but i enjoyed it.full of twists and turns, fast paced, clever, perhaps a littletoo clever for it's won good. but a solid crime caper, that borrows the best bits of the way sixth sense had it's twists and develops them. One of those fewmovies where making you keep guessing what's going to happen actually works. With solid acting, and one of my faves dusting hoffman is in it too.

 

Finding Nemo

 

amazing technological advancement again. Wonderfully scripted, wonderfully voice acted, funny for both adults and children alike, one of those few disney movies that get made in the last 4or 5 years, aka..good for the entire family. Aside from these disney pixar films, disney cannot do films like it used to. So yay to this

 

28 Days LAter

 

i hat, just hate horror films. But this..had such scope, such vision, such chilling views and scenery. A deserted britina, very few survivors, i'm sorry but this has to be in my list. I adored it, i reallydid. It could have been so much better yes, but even as it is, it's good. Well acted, good effects and just chilling cinematography.

 

Seabiscuit

 

Ok i felt this was an uplifting movie, with solid performances allround. Perhaps a little over-long but it still is in my list. a good solid effort all round, and a good feelgood movie :) Told in a very old fashioned way

 

Ripleys Game

 

I loved this film. Malckovich and scott are stunning, with ray winstone good in a suporting role too. The plot is good, simple and effective, the scenery is simply beautiful, the music is quiet yet plays well. A solid all round effort that i can happily watch again and again because it is so well done. Scripting is clever, although one ro two annoying lines otherwise very solid and very clever with the ideas it raises.

 

MYstic River

 

This is a good film, also told ina veryold fashioned way i believe. Quite a bithappens, well scripted and generally quite emotional attimes. i liked it

 

The Man Who Sued God

 

not amazing by any means, but i thought it was clever and witty.And billy Conely gives a good performance. I loved someof the ideas raisedabout religion, and it was quiteuplifting to me aswell.

 

ok thats' only 11, there's one or two mor ei like, the rest of the movies this year i found rather average...but then i've probably forgot a loadoffilms too

[dionisio]

:stunned: ..so many movies i wanna see...i gotta see....

 

@garry.....i agree totally on the pianist and others also otherw Polanski & Brody wouldnt have got the oscar!! ;) ....fascinatin movie...& to findin nemo...WOW..lol...

 

wow..ive got to see 21 grams..i believe i will be blown away after that movie..coz Inarritus "Amores Perros" left me speechless........prolly one of my all time favs

 

so heres my list of the movies i wanna see.... :D :P

21 grams.....mystic river....lost in translation.....lotr 3........maybe cold mountain....

 

:cool:

[Dania]

:snore: :snore: :snore:

[weedy_gonzalez]

ive only seen 2 movies out of the top 20 :o

[dionisio]

:snore: :snore: :snore:

 

 

of course u dont have any interest....if u keep watchin cheesy bollywood productions.... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Dania]

:angry: u know i never :angry:

[dionisio]

:rolleyes: :snore:

[Dania]

:angry: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[rf_ucsd]

Hey all! I see there's two pages of responses :stunned:

 

Undoubtedly there will be a lot of disagreement.

 

I just got home from work and am really looking forward to responding to this thread. Hopefully there's some really good stuff ... I hope so. There are a lot of movies in 2003 that I didn't see ... hopefully people will point me in the right direction.

 

And I hope everybody has had a great day in Coldplaying land.

[rf_ucsd]

We´ve got the same tastes! I love those movies!

 

Thanks, but you know what they say about people who agree with idiots ...

 

... that they're seeing somehting that nobody else is.

[rf_ucsd]

Crowe god the oscar for gladiator because A)it was a good solid emotional performance B) because the year before he was even more amazing in "the insider" for which he out acted al pacino (how rare is that)

 

Crowe did get jobbed that year, and if anything it started a three year run where the Academy gave out award based on resumes rather than actual performance. Denzel Washington's recreation of Ruben Carter in The Hurricane should have garnered the ultimate recognition, as should have Crowe's protrayal of John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. Alas, I am not an authority and I don't have the final word on any of it.

 

Still, Crowe's performance was good for what the role in Gladiator asked of him, but the problem is that the role was not a very demanding one, and ideally the top award would go to somebody whose role ask more of him (and he was able to deliver).

 

anyway

 

1. Return of the King

2. Mystic River

3. 21 Grams

4. Cold Mountain

5. The Barbarian Invasions

6. Big Fish

7. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

8. Lost in Translation

9. Elf

10. The Last Samurai

11. Kill Bill, Vol. 1

12. Intolerable Cruelty

13. Mona Lisa Smile

14. The Missing

15. Something's Got to Give

16. School of Rock

17. Love Actually

18. X2: X-Men United

19. My Life Without Me

20. The Matrix Reloaded

 

i have so many problems with this list.

 

Oh no! Well, that is why I posted, for feedback. I hope it's good feedback.

Note from later: Generally, the feedback was very good.

 

Forone,ROTK, such an over-rated pile dung in my personal opinion. The plot and story, like the books beforehand, areover-polluted. Too much time is wasted on stupid scnery shots. The movie isover-long, the SFX are nothing special(and a big marketing ploy ec is based around the sfx for some reason). The acting isn't that great. And while i do respect Jackson for attempting something so bold, and for trying to be this brave...it also has to be said that it's the fanboys who rate this film etc.

 

Personally i have never felt anything for the characters, never got involved in the story, never enjoyed whatis aw, just finding it more and more pointless and boring. Any good movie, in my view, should makeyou feel something for the charaters, should engage you, should captivate you..none of the LOTrfilms have done that, and so i cannot and will not ever put it in my top lists for anything.

 

This is far too harsh.

 

You're entitled to your opinions, as we all are, but there is something in there that crosses the line between valid criticism and undue cynicism. Using the term fanboy is uncalled for. It implies a personal bias in one's enthusiasm that clouds their judgement of those which might comparable. Given that acclaim for Return of the King is pretty widespread, the term is being misused. At the point the number of fanboys becomes significant enough to dictate a prodominence of opinion you should consider that the group has ceased to be fanboys.

 

And frankly, the term is offensive. I have never even read the books.

 

But beyond that, criticisms that the movie is too long and that the acting is not great seem appropriate to me. I have a major objection to the length, the ending, and the performances of Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and Orlando Bloom (among others). The characters are at times undeveloped, but this can be said of almost any movie. It all depends on where you want to look. In a lesser movie, this would prohibit such a high ranking.

 

However, no movie is perfect, and excellent parts of RotK redeem this movie. To say that the effects are nothing special is just wrong. One of the main reasons a Lord of the Rings live action movie had never been done before was the limitations of technology in either cost or capability. Jackson and WETA were able to develop technologies that made the effects managable, realistic, and cost-effective. The visual of this ends up being spectacular. Anybody who witnesses the scene where Gandlaf rides out from Minas Tirith to meet the the Gondorians from Osgiliath and shiled them from attacking Feel Beasts would see a great union of effects, cinematography, art direction and story. It's a poignant moment that would have been infeasable fifteen years ago; impossible twenty five years ago.

 

The fact that Peter Jackson is able to carry out this juggling act over the entirely of the movie is amazing. Most of the scenes require an improbable blending of technologies (be then new or old). I think the synergy of these effects, the art direction and the story are what put this film ahead of Mystic River. It is a vision unparalleled in movie history (though at times the script doesn't keep up with the majesty of the visuals). Is it far ahead of Mystic River? No. I wouldn't put it as far ahead as many would.

 

Pile (of) dung is unfair, but I respect your opinion ... especially your willingness to go against popular opinion. It does, at times, sound like more of a rant than a criticism.

 

anyways....the matrixc was also a huge over-rated pile of uber dung also' date=' but like the LOTr trilogy i never felt for any of the characters or the storyline, which i've seen done better with a morehuman side to it before.[/quote']

 

There is a reason it is at number twenty and not number one. At a certain point, you're moving beyond a criticism of the art and looking more towards the movies which have the most redeeming quality. At that point of the list, the twentieth ranked movie is basically interchangable with the thirty-fifth.

 

my list, although it wont hold the same "wow" factor you have, is my list and i will stae why for each one

 

(there is no order as i beleive this year to be downright awful in ters of good film releases)

 

Thanks for your list, too. From your list, these films were released in 2002:

 

NARC

28 Days LAter

Ripleys Game

The Pianist

Dark Blue

 

And this one was released in 2001:

 

The Man Who Sued God

 

The 2003 films that weren't on my list:

 

Life Of David Gale

Confidence

Seabiscuit

Finding Nemo

 

I have to admit that the only one from this list that really interested me was Life of David Gale, and I guess my life must have gotten busy at that time and missed it when it was here. It looked good, and I generally like both Spacey and Winslet, so I hope to see it. For the other three, I will try to make an effort to see them, as you wrote such good things about them.

 

Of course, any movie with Rachel Weisz is probably worth my time :).

[rf_ucsd]

ive only seen 2 movies out of the top 20 :o

 

it that because you're in Poland, you're not hugely into movies, or both?

[rf_ucsd]

:snore: :snore: :snore:

 

 

of course u dont have any interest....if u keep watchin cheesy bollywood productions.... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

 

:lol:

 

Thanks dionsio!

 

I was kind of hurt when I saw all those snoozies :bigcry:

[soleil]

You didn't see Seabuiscuit? :rolleyes: :lol:

[rf_ucsd]

No, it didn't look good to me ...

 

But now so many people are recommending it to me both here and elsewhere. I'm not a give fan of Tobey MacGuire, Jeff Bridges, horses or horse racing.

 

I like going to movies and I want to see everything, but at some point I have to make choices ...

 

... I would have much rather gone to Seabuiscit that S.W.A.T., but that one wasn't my choice :(

[soleil]

lol, someone forced you to watch swat?

yeah, i'm not into horses AT ALL, but i still think the movie was pretty good.

[shangrila]

rf_ucd

 

Sorry, don't know your name.

 

It looks like you got all the time in the world to have written all of this.

 

So dude, do you want to be a movie critic? :confused:

[i heart chrismartin]

I didn't see 20 movies this year... but from those I saw my favorites were:

 

LOTR: ROTK

28 DAYS LATER(it was released in 2002? but i saw it this year)

FINDING NEMO

MATRIX RELOADED

X-MEN: 2

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

[Majson]

Denzel Washington's recreation of Ruben Carter in The Hurricane should have garnered the ultimate recognition' date=' as should have Crowe's protrayal of John Nash in [b']A Beautiful Mind[/b]. Alas, I am not an authority and I don't have the final word on any of it.

 

I actually felt that Denzal wasn't the best actor in that year, although i do love the film..and i also felt crower, while good as Nash also wasn't the best actor of that year.

 

Still' date=' Crowe's performance was good for what the role in [b']Gladiator[/b] asked of him, but the problem is that the role was not a very demanding one, and ideally the top award would go to somebody whose role ask more of him (and he was able to deliver).

 

i think it was a hard role to do, i mean it was both physical, filmed in hot condidtions, with sdo much going on. The more i think abou it, the more i appreciate the affort invovled from everyone invovled.

 

This is far too harsh.

 

You're entitled to your opinions, as we all are, but there is something in there that crosses the line between valid criticism and undue cynicism. Using the term fanboy is uncalled for. It implies a personal bias in one's enthusiasm that clouds their judgement of those which might comparable. Given that acclaim for Return of the King is pretty widespread, the term is being misused. At the point the number of fanboys becomes significant enough to dictate a prodominence of opinion you should consider that the group has ceased to be fanboys.

 

But beyond that, criticisms that the movie is too long and that the acting is not great seem appropriate to me. I have a major objection to the length, the ending, and the performances of Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and Orlando Bloom (among others). The characters are at times undeveloped, but this can be said of almost any movie. It all depends on where you want to look. In a lesser movie, this would prohibit such a high ranking.

 

However, no movie is perfect, and excellent parts of RotK redeem this movie. To say that the effects are nothing special is just wrong. One of the main reasons a Lord of the Rings live action movie had never been done before was the limitations of technology in either cost or capability. Jackson and WETA were able to develop technologies that made the effects managable, realistic, and cost-effective. The visual of this ends up being spectacular. Anybody who witnesses the scene where Gandlaf rides out from Minas Tirith to meet the the Gondorians from Osgiliath and shiled them from attacking Feel Beasts would see a great union of effects, cinematography, art direction and story. It's a poignant moment that would have been infeasable fifteen years ago; impossible twenty five years ago.

 

The fact that Peter Jackson is able to carry out this juggling act over the entirely of the movie is amazing. Most of the scenes require an improbable blending of technologies (be then new or old). I think the synergy of these effects, the art direction and the story are what put this film ahead of Mystic River. It is a vision unparalleled in movie history (though at times the script doesn't keep up with the majesty of the visuals). Is it far ahead of Mystic River? No. I wouldn't put it as far ahead as many would.

 

Pile (of) dung is unfair, but I respect your opinion ... especially your willingness to go against popular opinion. It does, at times, sound like more of a rant than a criticism.

 

Well that is fair enough for you to say, but i am drawing my opinion based upon the people i know who have sene it and rant about how amazing it is. Maybe if is aw a more serious person who loved it, someone who didn't just jump up and down and que for hours to get a glimpse of the stars of the film at a premiere i would take the opinions more seriously.

 

I, however, cannot take that kind of opinion seriously. Although i do respect their opinion, and would never try tellign them that they're wrong (who am i to say that?) i also know that they are biased in what they're going to beleive, just like i will be with any kevin spacey film.

 

When LOTr 1st came out i really wanted to see it, it osunded like my kind of film, and i was dreading seeing harry potter. A stupid magician that just seems to borrow elemtns from everry great idea before it. It turned out i loved the entire idea of potter and felt bored during LOTR. I couldnt figure it, i still can't. On paper LOTr has what it takes to be one of the all time greats, but when i see it it just lacks that something for me to like it. As i've said, it just doesn't engage me on any level. Wish it did cos it would appear i'm missing out on something amazing.

 

Thanks for your list, too. From your list, these films were released in 2002:

 

NARC

28 Days LAter

Ripleys Game

The Pianist

Dark Blue

 

And this one was released in 2001:

 

The Man Who Sued God

 

they were all released in 2003 in the uk. I can only base my films of 2003 of those i saw in 2003. The pianist might have made the last oscars lsit but to me it was a 2003 film, as was NARc, ripleys game was released in june. so meh

 

As for spacey and winslet..yes their performances are good, the plot of david gale si solid, but if i'm honest it might only make my list because it's got spacey in and i'm just a spacey fan. But i like the film, there are spacey films i dont like "hurley burely" for example,. so it can't be totally bad