More movie thoughts

[mmcirvin]

If I had to pick a best movie of 2003, Return of the King would be in second place; I think my sentimental favorite would be A Mighty Wind, which I finally saw (twice) after I got it on DVD. It's got fewer outright laughs than the previous Christopher Guest-and-pals ensemble projects, but it more than makes up for that with a story thread for Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy (playing his strangest character yet) that turns into genuinely touching drama, and a collection of musical pastiches that are in some cases slyly hilarious in a subtle way you rarely find in modern parody, and in others just plain good on their own.

(Warning: The people on IMDB don't seem to agree with me on this.)

Third place would be The School of Rock, with the special award for Best Movie We Had No Right To Expect; fourth would be Lost in Translation, which was overrated, but had some nice scenes and a typically great performance by Bill Murray, who can carry whole movies with a facial expression. But I honestly didn't see that many new movies this year, so this list is probably biased by small sample size.

Update: Damn, I forgot Pirates of the Caribbean. Okay, Lost in Translation moves down to fifth, and actually there were two Amazingly Entertaining Movies We Had No Right To Expect.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

My best movie of 2003 was Almodóvar's "Talk To Her". None of the "best of" lists seem to include it, maybe because it was made late in 2002, but it didn't come out in the US until 2003. Bleh.

Anyway, i can't recommend the movie enough.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I greatly enjoyed that one as well, but Matt knows better than to take seriously my movie reviews.

One movie that I really loved, but that I'm not seeing on anyone's list, is "Matchstick Men." It had about 3 different elements that would have, each in themselves, made a good movie, and the three together made something, I think, truly special.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, other highly-regarded movies that most people could only have seen in 2003 include "The Pianist," and "City of God." I haven't seen the latter, but the former was terrific, and not one of the typical Tales of the Holocaust that movies are made from. Much more hopeful. At any rate, both are fair game for a 2003 best-of.

Talk to Her

[darkphonics.livejournal.com]

I really, really, really enjoyed 'Talk to Her'. I saw it approximately two days after I saw 'The Pianist' and fully expected it to in no way compare to that movie (not that the two are really comparable, but...) Anyway, I ended up completely loving it. What a beautiful movie. And so not at all what I expected. And though this is definitely not representative of the movie at large, my favorite scene is when they are watching the old, silent picture that involves the tiny man crawling into the enormous vagina. That's good stuff, that is.

I won't even go into my opinions on the movie's Matt mentioned. I can't even get started on how much I loved 'School of Rock', for fear the abundance of Jack Black love might overwhelm me. To quote legendary guitarist Nigel Tuffnel, "How much more Black could it be? And the answer is none...none more Black."