Meg's Good in A Boring Movie
This boring movie with its traditional crime-thriller ending isn't let down by Meg Ryan. She seems to be the one brilliant gem with her acting performance that is let down by the plodding direction and the sub-par script. I enjoyed her out of character performance and gritty manner of out of make-up acting that helped this movie from being a complete disaster.
CHRIS KNIPP'S 2003 BEST MOVIE LISTS
I will have to see it. I already knew I should: see below for my 2003 Best Lists. I've seen these--except for one: I am assuming LOTR 3 will be worth listing, but am holding off seeing it till I've prepped with some further reading. This was a great year for documentaries and not so good for foreign films--though City of God was one of the best ever. As usual, I've listed Ten Best US and Ten Best Foreign--except that I couldn't come up with quite ten foreign bests. I didn't list the year's "Worst" this time, leaving that to those who seek out junk more assiduously than I do. Note that being "most overrated" doesn't mean a movie isn't a good one. "Shortlisted" means runners-up to the 'best' lists.
TEN BEST OF 2003 ( U. S. )______________________________________________
AMERICAN SPLENDOR (BERMAN AND PULCINI)
BETTER LUCK TOMORROW (JUSTIN LIM)
CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES (ERIC BYLER)
CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND (GEORGE CLOONEY)
ELEPHANT (GUS VAN SANT)
KILL BILL: VOL. 1 (QUENTIN TARANTINO)
MYSTIC RIVER (CLINT EASTWOOD)
NORTHFORK (MICHAEL POLISH)
RAISING VICTOR VARGAS (PETER SOLLETT)
SEABISCUIT (GARY ROSS)
BEST FOREIGN __________________________________
CIY OF GOD (CIUDADE DE DEUS (KATIA LUND, FERNANDO MEIRELLES, 2002)
DIRTY PRETTY THINGS (STEPHEN FREARS, 2002)
DIVINE INTERVENTION (YADON ILAHIYYAH, ELIA SULEIMAN, 2001)
L’IMBALSAMATORE, (THE EMBALMER, MATTEO GARRONE, 2002)
THE MAN ON THE TRAIN (L’HOMME DU TRAIN, PATRICE LECONTE, 2002)
MORVERN CALLAR (LYNNE RAMSEY, 2002)
THE SON (LE FILS, JEAN-PIERRE DARDENNE, LUC DARDENNE, 2002)
SPIDER (DAVID CRONENBERG)
SWEET SIXTEEN (KEN LOACH 2002)
BEST ANIMATIONS_____________________________________
FINDING NEMO (ANDREW STANTON, LEE UNKRICH)
THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (LES TRIPLETTES DE BELLEVILLE,
SYLVAIN CHOMET)
BEST DOCUMENTARIES____________________________________________
BUS 174 (ONIBUS 174, 2002, FILIPE LACERDA, JOSE PADILHA)
CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (ANDREW JARECKI)
CHARLIE: THE LIFE AND ART OF CHARLES CHAPLIN (RICHARD SCHICKEL)
MY ARCHITECT (NATHANIEL KAHN)
POWER TRIP (PAUL DEVLIN)
THE FOG OF WAR (ERROLL MORRIS)
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED (CHAVEZ: INSIDE THE COUP,
KIM BARTLEY AND DONNACHA O’BRIAIN)
SPELLBOUND (JEFF BLITZ)
STOKED: THE RISE AND FALL OF GATOR (HELEN STICKLER)
TO BE AND TO HAVE (ÊTRE ET AVOIR, 2002, NICOLAS PHILIBERT)
SHORTLISTED, ALL CATEGORIES___________________________
GERRY (GUS VAN SANT)
GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING (PETER WEBBER)
LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING (PETER JACKSON)
LOST IN TRANSLATION (SOFIA COPPOLA)
MADAME SATÃ (KARIM AINOUZ, 2002)
MONSTER (PATTY JENKINS)
NARC (JOE CARNAHAN, 2002)
SCHOOL OF ROCK (RICHARD LINKLETTER)
SHATTERED GLASS (BILLY RAY)
SPUN (JONAS ÅKERLUND)
THE STATION AGENT (THOMAS MCCARTHY)
SYLVIA (CHRISTINE JEFFS)
YOSSI AND JAGGER (AYTAN FOX, 2002)
ONES I WISH I'D SEEN BEFORE I MADE THIS LIST___________
THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS (DENYS ARCAND)
LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (PETER JACKSON)
OWNING MAHONEY (RICHARD KWIETNIOWSKI)
YEAR'S MOST OVERRATED____________________________
COLD MOUNTAIN (ANTHONY MINGHELLA)
LOST IN TRANSLATION (SOFIA COPPOLA)
IN AMERICA (JIM SHERIDAN)
21 GRAMS (ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU)
THE STATION AGENT (THOMAS MCCARTHY)
Re: CHRIS KNIPP'S 2003 BEST MOVIE LISTS
Originally posted by Chris Knipp
YEAR'S MOST OVERRATED____________________________
COLD MOUNTAIN (ANTHONY MINGHELLA)
LOST IN TRANSLATION (SOFIA COPPOLA)
IN AMERICA (JIM SHERIDAN)
21 GRAMS (ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU)
THE STATION AGENT (THOMAS MCCARTHY)
Indeed, I like these films more than you do. The first two will likely enter my Top 10 English language list, which I'll post at the end of the month. I would agree that some critics have used the word "masterpiece" in their reviews of these films and it's a bit much. But I felt In America earns the tears, 21 Grams sustains dramatic intensity with superb perfs, and The Station Agent entertains effortlessly, like Finding Nemo or School of Rock.
If I wanted to have a pleasant, agreeable chat with you I'd bring up two films from your list that I love: David Cronenberg's SPIDER and THE SON, the one film I saw all year that made me feel I was a better person after watching it.
To Oscar re: our differences and "Most overrated"
Sometimes my "most overrated" category includes movies I actually like; I just think the critics and the public have gone overboard. This is the case with "Lost in Translation". And I couldn't say that "21 Grams" is crap, with such good actors working so hard -- a little too hard, in a dissheveled, pretentious effort by the previously outstanding Mexican director. "Station Agent" might be seen as a nice, sweet little indie film, but it's an exploitation of underdog status and ridden with cliches, and again, it's simply overrated. "In America" has moments, and again some excellent acting, but we're in fantasyland, a world of sentimentality and falsehood. These are all movies by directors who've done excellent stuff. As for Minghella, I've always found him overrated. I could not see why people swooned for the overwrought, pretentious, overlong "English Patient." "The Talented Mr. Ripley" had one or two good moments -- the director's lavish efforts at atmosphere pay off occasionally and the jazz scene is a hot moment. But the filmmakers misread the Ripley character -- he shouldn't turn out to be gay; and the casting was off: Jude Law would have made a better Ripley than Damon. The Blanchett character was unnecessary and the background was too elaborate -- Minghella tinkered too much as usual, and wound up with a piece of glossy fluff, which is the direction he is usually going. In "Cold Mountain" he has taken an overrated (really very badly written) novel and blown it up in so many ways that you don't know where it is going. He is a master of overkill and overproduction, which bowls people over. His pretention is nauseating. I always hope he'll come up with something -- he tries so hard -- but I'm about to give up on him. This movie got tons of publicity but bombed with the critics, justifyably this time.
Many movies are underrated, too. Some of the conoscenti acknowledge "The Son" to be a classic, but it sure isn't a household word in the USA, is it? And how many people saw "Spider" in theaters? Yet those blow away the others we're discussing here, which don't deserve to be mentioned in the same paragraph.
EarlXX: Welcome aboard. I hope you get to see some better, hipper stuff. Some of your items in this list look like turkeys to me, not even worth a ** rating if one had more choices, and the list is heavily weighted toward the usual cineplex blockbuster stuff.
Tarantino is a geek- that's why we love him
QT is not a "master" (yet). He's well on his way, though.
I understand your position, cinemabon: gratuitous violence doesn't make for great cinema. Your point is well taken. QT is over-the-top. BUT! He's over the top in such a way that it isn't so much gratuitous as it is upholding certain traditions: he pays tribute to the "vibe" of films like The Wild Bunch, Band of Outsiders, and Superfly.
Tarantino is a film geek. How can you not love a fellow film geek? If he was dishonoring the medium somehow I could see his dismissal as a "great filmmaker", but man, he's got a feel to his films that just soothes the soul. He loves movies of all types and he just tries to make the best films he can make while satisfying his own taste. Can't fault him for that.
His violence is cinema violence. You never actually see Marvin's head get blown off. You THINK you see it, (it's edited like a lightning bolt), but Quentin never actually goes all the way. You see a LOT of blood and "brain tissue"(which creates the revulsion/horror in the viewer), but he edited the scene so well that the point is driven home without EVERYTHING. Case in point again: the anal rape of Marcellus Wallace. You never see anything explicit- extremely disturbing, yes- explicit, no. Same thing in Reservoir Dogs during the "are you gonna bark?" scene- Madsen cuts off the cops' ear but YOU DON'T SEE IT ACTUALLY BEING CUT OFF.
QT knows the power of a well-edited scene. It's like George Lucas said: "It's not hard to get a reaction from an audience- just show some guy wringing a kittens' neck".
You seem to have a visceral contempt for Tarantino, cinemabon.
I sense you strongly object to his methods of delivering entertainment- not the entertainment he delivers. You mention The Godfather- a fairly violent movie. Sonny is riddled with bullets (like Travolta was in Pulp) and it's pretty shocking. How about the horse head scene? Grim stuff. Coppola showed you an ACTUAL horse's head! QT never showed you ACTUAL brain tissue or even ACTUAL blood. It's sfx. Coppola shows a cow being slaughtered in Apocalypse. Who's more gratuitous?
I won't try to sway you to join the QT camp, but I will say he's more aware of what he puts on screen than we are. It's because he's trying to honor the medium and the men who inspired him.
Film geeks and film buffs are too different animals.
I'm with you all the way on this, Johann. I think though that actually people, even FilmWurld people, sometimes resent rather than like Tarantino because he's a film geek, as well as because he's popular and super-famous. Some of us may feel he's just totally over-the-top as a film geek; that he loses touch completely with "reality" (a word that Nabokov said must always be in quotation marks, and certainly should be when we're talking about movies). A lot of filmbuffdom is about admiring offbeat, not-famous movies that are full of wholesome thoughts and fine intentions. That approach won't get you very far inside Tarantinodom.
For me Tarantino was always about the dialogue, but also about the fresh way he uses movie traditions, and stuff that's uniquely cinematic. There are things that work really well on the screen --for instance, shooting guns; smoking cigarettes; going very fast in cars -- which aren't necessarily a good idea in real life. But they are just very cool in the movies. Tarantino works with these things. He works completely out of the movies, all his references are to other movies, sometimes it seems every shot starts with a reference to another movie, and yet he doesn't need somebody else's ideas or stories to make his movies, they're completely his own. That's the paradox.
His sense of timing is exquisite. His pacing and editing. Along with that he has great clarity. Nothing is fuzzy, everything is spelled out, but with wit. There's tremendous enthusiasm for the process, and at the same time the detachment necessary to crack a joke -- a heroic quality, which is why he has been moving in the direction of heroic characters in Kill Bill 1 & 2. What makes Kill Bill 1 & 2 beautiful to watch is that clarity. And the clarity also is what makes QT's dialogue so much fun: its being so clearly in the moment. It goes where it takes them. Travolta and Jackson are going upstairs to kill some guys, but they're talking about foot massage, because that's where the dialogue takes them. Yet it's highly relevant to the story: it's about their relation to Marcellus Wallace. Few filmmakers in cinematic history have written better dialogue than Tarantino writes. But I'm not sure every film buff has a sensitivity to dialogue -- though a lot of average moviegoers do because it's pure entertainment. The film buff likes to see von Trier's women being tormented, and says that's uplifting, but when Travolta has somebody's head blown off, even though we don't see it and it's not really about hurting anybody, the film buff is filled with righteous indignation, because it's not serious.
Re: Kiarostami's TEN: Take me to Grandma's
Quote:
Originally posted by Johann
I'm adding Kiarostami's "10" to the list.
This film should have won the Palm D'or. Abbas takes a bold idea and comes up with a beautiful montage of female yin and yang.
It's a convincing exposee of one lonely Iranian woman. She's a taxi driver, and she's both repulsive and attractive. She has conversations with other women and her son that speak volumes about her own insecurities & dreams. Staggering film.
My favorite scene is the one with the prostitute. I know why Kiarostami doesn't show her face, but God did I want to see it!!
Never in my life have I wanted to put a face to a voice..
Touching, heartbreaking, I saw it twice.
I'm also adding Abbas Kiarostami's 10 to the list of best films of 2003. (The film had an official North American premiere on March 5, 2003 although it was shown at the 2002 NYFF). 10 was granted a (very) limited release. I had to import the dvd from the UK to have access to it.
I admire how effectively Kiarostami managed to circumvent Iran's strict censorship, which make it virtually impossible to deal with male-female relationships. He has found a formal structure consisting of ten scenes shot from a DV camera planted on a car's dashboard. An obnoxious boy of about 12 serves as a stand-in for the men in the lives of a middle-class female driver and the women who ride in her car.
Re: Spider and Mystic River
Quote:
Originally posted by tabuno
Ralph Fiennes had a great script, a great role, a superb grasp of his material and character...it wasn't over the top like Mr. Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. Mystic River captured its accolades by going against type in terms of the general public's expectations of a movie - it seemed fresh and unusual. Mr. Fiennes, however, went beyond the normal mental illness stereotype to create a strikingly real and important experiential performance that really captures a disorder that impacts thousands of people in this country.
You are absolutely correct, and Cronenberg mentioned this himself in an interview that he has heard from many shocked by how realistic his portrayed of the illness truly was. Fiennes was great along with the film, no surprise that J. Hoberman selected Spider as the best film from 2003.
