Okay, you have all shamed me into my own movie page. Unlike some other people's pages, you probably will have heard of all of the movies below. Prior to 2 March, 2002, mostly commercial movies viewed in theaters will be listed. The list will be made more complete as time allows.
The rating system:
| Date Viewed | Title | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 12/31/00 | O Brother, Where Art Thou? | Freakin' Awesome, may in time be upgraded to Classic -- Four Stars |
| 8/18/01 | Planet of the Apes (2001) | Okay |
| 8/25/01 | Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back | Pretty Good (for a Kevin Smith fan/ Eh for anyone else) |
| 9/29/01 | Serendipity | Okay |
| 11/10/01 | K-Pax | Eh |
| 11/25/01 | Spy Game | Okay |
| 12/8/01 | Ocean's 11 (2001) | Freakin' Awesome (the Clooney factor, naturally) |
| 12/27/01 | Monty Python and the Holy Grail | Classic -- Four Stars |
| 12/28/01 | Three Kings | Freakin' Awesome ("Hey, are we shooting people today or what?") |
| 1/1/02 | Pride and Prejudice (BBC Series DVD) | Classic -- Four Stars |
| 1/12/02 | Gosford Park | Okay |
| 1/20/02 | Moulin Rouge | Freakin' Awesome |
| 1/27/02 | Royal Tenenbaums | Pretty Good |
| 2/2/02 | Amelie | Pretty Good |
| 3/1/02 | Ghost World | Pretty Good |
| 3/2/02 | Count of Monte Christo | Pretty Good |
| 3/3/02 | The Book of Life | Freakin' Awesome (Hal Hartley movie, part of the 2000 Seen By...Series) |
| 3/8/02 | Dude, Where's My Car | Umm, no (I'm sorry Chrisp, I really tried. I made it through 50 minutes, but it's bad, not camp. There are jokes that could have been funny, but they were beaten to death with a stick -- "and theeeennnnn". It does not get the lowest ranking, however, because it was never supposed to be any good.) |
| 3/9/02 | Raiders of the Lost Ark | Classic -- Four Stars |
| 3/9/02 | Star Trek: Generations | Okay |
| 3/15/02 | Contact | Pretty Good |
| 3/19/02 | The Philadelphia Story | Pretty Good (This rating actually pains me. How can I not rate a film with my two favorite actors (Cary and Kate) and such a great story as either a classic or freakin' awesome? It's just me, but I really prefer High Society to this one -- something about the timing of this version is just off) |
| 3/19-20/02 | It Happened One Night | Classic -- Four Stars |
| 3/24/02 | Operation Petticoat | Classic -- Four Stars |
| 4/5/02 | Rat Race | Umm, no |
| 4/12/02 | Bandits | Pretty Good (This is one of those movies where it gets a higher rating than it would have had, because of the actors involved. Bruce Willis does these kind of roles really well, and Billy Bob Thornton is excellent and funny as hell. Even Cate Blanchett channeling Marilu Henner works really well.) |
| 4/21/02 | Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? | Freakin' Awesome! (First time I've seen it -- will probably get upgraded to Classic after I've seen it again) |
| 5/5/02 | Cat's Meow | Pretty Good (Very solid movie, good performances AND Eddie Izzard. Even Jennifer Tilly wasn't that annoying) |
| 5/19/02 | About A Boy | Pretty Good (Exactly what you think it's going to be, but if you don't like Hugh Grant at all, don't go. It's very English, very Hugh) |
| 6/8/02 | The Importance of Being Earnest | Pretty Good (Exactly what you think it's going to be -- if you like costume dramas and Oscar Wilde, it works. Also Colin Firth does the floppy Englishman thing, but unlike Hugh Grant, it's endearing) |
| 6/15/02 | My Big Fat Greek Wedding | Pretty Good (People were rolling on the floors, and I enjoyed it, but I found it a bit too stereotypical -- rather like I found Moonstruck. A good solid cute movie that, while predictable, doesn't insult your intelligence) |
| 6/16/02 | The Man Who Wasn't There | Pretty Good (I normally don't like Coen brothers movies, with the exception of O Brother Where Art Thou, but this one was very well done, very stylized and Billy Bob did a great job. The lack of Holly Hunter helped tremendously. Note of warning, it's not an "upper" of a movie) |
| 6/28/02 | Orange County | Eh (This is the kind of movie where you had to be in the mood for it. I wasn't. Rushmore was a way better version of this. Lots of famous people with cameos) |
| 6/30/02 | Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | Pretty Good (It was pretty faithful to the book, but it just seemed mildly flat and lacking in charm somehow) |
| 7/4/02 | Men In Black II | Pretty Good (July 4th, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, pretty much what you'd expect -- some funny moments, tight pacing. Though, if you didn't like the first one, there's nothing here for you.) |
| 7/19/02 | No Such Thing | Okay (It's Hal Hartley, and one of the ones where he gives initially gives in to his bleaker side, but picks up tremendously once Robert John Burke's character enters the scene. There are great hints of the social satire and humor evident in Book of Life, and some of the commentary on what the terrorists were up to turned out to be sadly prescient.) |
| 7/20/02 | L.I.E | Okay (Given the locale and a lot of other factors, this would be what Hartley would have done if Hartley did movies about high school freshmen and pedophiles.) |
| 7/21/02 | Murder By Death | *Guilty Pleasure (What can I say? Eight million times better than "Clue") |
| 9/1/02 | Black Hawk Down | Eh (While I wouldn't call it bad, it wasn't at all what I was expecting -- I thought there was going to be more of a plot and a subtext, rather than a two-hour military operation) |
| 10/27/02 | Insomnia | Okay (Another film that gets a better rating than it otherwise might because of the strength of the actors in it, although Al Pacino is still prone to overacting. Robin Williams is always good.) |
| 10/27/02 | Baran | Pretty Good (Iranian film about the plight of Afghan refugees -- not a lot of dialogue, which works given that I don't speak Farsi, Dari or Pashto. What's really the most interesting is the difference in sensibilities between this film and anything made in the US -- the characters and plots are so raw and nothing is polished or trite. Warning -- not a "feel-good" movie.) |
| 11/28/02 | Solaris | Freakin' Awesome (Even without the Clooney factor. It's true science fiction, and has the Kubrickian feel of 2001. I think this film may not do well because of marketing -- they're billing it as a Clooney romance, when it's really an arthouse kind of film. It's slow, but it works as a slow movie. Clooney is keeping up his streak of picking interesting movies that work. Okay, Clooney's bare butt doesn't hinder the movie either) |
| 12/14/02 | Star Trek: Nemesis | Pretty Good (If you follow Trek, it's not as bad as the last one was, but if you've never liked Trek there's nothing here to commend it. Just turn off your brain and ignore the plot holes you can drive a starship through, and be prepared for "Don't worry, Number One, we'll have you there in no time without any troubles....") |
| 1/1/03 | Independence Day | *Guilty Pleasure (Next up on the list of Christmas DVDs that I received, this movie is a hoot if you watch it as a satire of big budget action movies -- I love it. I saw it twice in the theater -- first time in Manhattan with the stereotypical "too cool for this" crowd (everyone was rolling on the floor with laughter and had a great time) and the second time on an Air Force base in the Pacific (I was the only one laughing at areas not officially labelled "joke here", but I did hear all the flyboys arguing about the aerodynamic possibilities of the ships and the special effects coming out of the movie) It is movies like this that do make me respect the whole "Will-Smith-on-the-Fourth-of-July" thing. Non-socially redeeming entertainment movies -- it's a good thing.) |
| 1/2/03 | From Dusk Till Dawn | Freakin' Awesome (This was a movie I was totally expecting to hate, but didn't. Another Christmas DVD, this was a movie that was a total surprise when I first saw it. I was expecting a Tarantino movie when I started, and wasn't disappointed for the first half. Then the movie does this complete turnabout and becomes something totally other than what it was, which made it a total hoot. I thought this movie was awesome even before there was such a thing as a "Clooney factor".) |
| 1/4/03 | The Gangs of New York | Okay (It's very clear while watching it that this is an Important Film. It certainly was an epic, but it was flat somehow -- I couldn't really become engaged with the characters. I think the film was slightly miscast -- Leo - while certainly not awful -- wasn't entirely believable, and he just looks so pretty and babyfaced. Daniel Day-Lewis acquired a serious Merkin accent that was a bit obvious, and he seemed to be channeling Al Pacino in several places. The less said about Cameron Diaz, the better. My friend Sheryle and I do expect to see several Oscar nominations come out of this one, mostly because there's not much else out there, not because it's deserving.) |
| 1/25/03 | Confessions of a Dangerous Mind | Pretty Good (You can tell that Clooney has spent a lot of time around Soderburgh and has absorbed his style. Weird story -- a bit depressing, actually. But I'll tell you how I now know that Barris is absolutely lying about working for the government -- Clooney's character tells him that he'll be doing it for the money. Who knew that Barris was that much of a comedian?) |
| 2/15/03 | The Princess Bride | Classic -- Four Stars (This is the special edition DVD version. However, the best bits are still available in the plain old movie, mostly any bits with Wally Shawn, Mandy Patinkin, Billy Crystal and Carole Kane) |
| 2/18/03 | About Schmidt | Okay (I guess Nicholson was good -- as one reviewer put it, he played it straight without any Nicholson leering, but this movie is DEPRESSING. I'm not a huge fan of watching movies about people with empty lives, and this guy makes Willy Loman look like a raging success with a sterling family life. 'Nuff said.) |
| 4/27/03 | Bend It Like Beckham | Pretty Good (Pretty standard British fare about a girl from a Sikh family who wants to play footie (soccer) and they're not too thrilled with that. There's a strong element of 'My Big Fat Sikh Wedding' in here, and a bit of Bollywood dancing. However, 'pretty standard British fare' is better than 85 percent of the American films, so I recommend it.) |
| 5/16/03 | Welcome To Collinwood | Pretty Good (Yes, Clooney's in it, but only for a few minutes. There is a bizarre bit with him and a yarmulke and peis (or as Chrisp tells me they're spelled, Jewish dreadlocks) The movie overall is interesting, fairly stylized, with good performances by Bill Macy and Sam Rockwell) |
| 5/17/03 | Uncle Saddam | Pretty Good (Fascinating documentary by a French filmmaker who managed to smuggle a lot of footage out of Iraq of Saddam's total weirdnesses. Howard Hughes had nothing on this guy. The most interesting bit, I thought, was one of the DVD extras -- the interview with the director as he explains his epiphanies as he goes from blaming the West for the sanctions that are killing Iraqi children, to screaming at the camera "you must depose this monster!") |
| 1/19/04 | Lost in Translation | Pretty Good (Very interesting perspective on being a visitor in Japan. Some have criticized it as stereotyping, but honestly, that's just what it feels like to be passing through in Japan. Sofia Coppola captured the sensory overload that much of Japan provides. Also thumbs up for the ambiguous nature of the relationship between the two main characters.) |
| 2/16/04 | Intolerable Cruelty | Pretty Good (Mildly quirky standard semi-remake of War of the Roses. It's Clooney obsessing over his teeth hooking up with Catherine Zeta-Jones, for heaven's sake -- what's not to like? More ugly people in ugly clothes that must be sat through as pennance, a la Ocean's 11.) |
| 3/20/04 | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind | Freakin' Awesome (It gets this ranking alone just for the fact that I didn't realize that I was watching Jim Carrey, who did a fantastic and dare I say understated job in this role. It's interesting, and I didn't feel like I wanted to crawl out of my skin like I did in Being John Malkovich. Not sure how many viewings this one will stand up to, though.) |