2 blind warriors, a sailor & Kieth Richards walk into a bar…

Jan 13, 2010 Cool Stuff
Posted by admin

There were a lot of movies that critics, both professional and amateur, slammed in 2003. Well, what the hell do those clowns know? Here are my pics for the year:

• ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO: Yeah, it was all over the place but who cares! Robert Rodriguez gives a fun-filled romp in a movie that Johnny Depp looks like he is having as much fun making as he did FEAR & LOATHING. Banderas is great once again as the Mariachi and Salma Hayek smolders too briefly on the screen for my taste. Eva Mendez exudes sexuality and danger, Micky Rourke is a real cabron and Enrique Inglesias manages to be prettier than Eva and evoke more drunken world weariness than Mickey! Movie even has Ruben Blades!

• MASTER & COMMANDER: As much criticism as the guy gets, Russell Crowe can carry a film and here he is extremely good as a Sea Captain in pursuit of privateers! Beautiful cinematography of this film often make you feel as if you were at sea while the brutality of battle and the hardships of such a life are thoroughly depicted, including what passed for surgery in the days of the Napoleonic Wars. There is also the theme of exploration and the thirst for scientific knowledge that ran rampant at the time, evidenced by the sub-plot of the ship’s doctor desperately wanting to study life on the Galapagos. Good old high seas adventure!

• X2: Here is an example were a sequel may be superior to it’s predecessor! Alan Cumming really did a great job portraying the Fuzzy Blue Elf and Brian Cox proves once again that there are few actors alive that can breath such malevolence into a character.

• HOUSE of 1000 CORPSES: If anyone has drawn fire and scrutiny from critiques and audiences it is Rob Zombie, but if you have a problem with his directorial debut than you are just playa-hatin! Excellent production, great characters and a kick-ass soundtrack make this a drive-in horror hit! You really like the kids of which the Firefly Family are about to make short work. Loaded with classic horror movie references and a classic horror movie cast (Sid Haig, Tom Towles, Bill Mosely and Karen Black) really solidify it as a new exploitation classic. The scene in which THE SHEILD’s Walton Goggins is executed by Otis Firefly is simply riveting.

• HAUTE TENSION: Yo, man, that bitch is crazy!

• RETURN OF THE KING: While it is the weakest of the 3 films and does deserve some pokes for being overly melodramatic, and, even, a little, well you know, for the amount of time focused upon Sam & Frodo’s breaking-up and getting back together (this may be the only snark you will get out of me) it was liking watching Ross & Rachel for a hot minute. There are also two glaring changes from the novel that stick in my personal craw (Faramir attempting to bring the One Ring to his father Denethor and the complete omission of the scouring of the Shire) that being said, the film is still a masterpiece and I can get away with talking trash when someone gives me a 300 million to make a trilogy based on one the greatest pieces of fantasy literature ever written! The battle of the Pellenor Fields was practically taken from my mind’s eye and no giant spider has ever looked a good as Shelob. You can tell that the kids at WETA really took notice of Tolkein’s description of the Last Child of Ungolient, “But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness.” Oh, by the way, I guarantee that I could do a great mini-series of NINE PRINCES IN AMBER for under 250 million, if anybody wants to pony up the coin. Anybody?

• MONSTER: Once again let’s touch on the subject of crazy bitches. Charlize Theron was an actress long criticized for being just a pretty face. Boy, did she prove them wrong with her turn a real- life serial killer Aileen Wournos. Christina Ricci is also perfect as Theron’s less than unwitting girlfriend. Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress, Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama and the SAG Award for her performance. Astounding!

• BAADASSSSS! Mario Van Peebles turns his critical eye towards a topic of which he had both intimate knowledge and the impetus to explore, his father and the making of the film which started the Blaxploitation genre, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Mario himself starred as the young version of Sweet and to say that his father had a tendency to be a task master towards his son and himself would be an understatement! Rain Wilson is great, as always, playing Melvin’s good friend and Adam west makes a wonderful cameo. The title that Mario initially wanted was “How to Get the Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass”, which is truly apropos.

• ZATOICHI: You want to talk about movie bad-asses, no conversation would be complete without mentioning the blind samurai Zatoichi! 26 films were made from 1962 to 1989 and one hundred and twelve episodes were aired from 1972 to 1974 about the lovable rouge, a masseur and gambler that travels the country side, righting wrongs, usually after taking some Yakuza in dice! The legendary Beat Takeshi, known in the USA as Vic Ramano, host of Most Extreme Elimination Challenge; takes the role from Shintaro Katsu truly brings honor to the film, which he also directed.
  

• PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: Everybody had something negative to say about the movie I had the most fun watching that year before it made it to screens. And they were full of a lot of hot air! Too bad it was a one-hit wonder! Curses, me mateys.

2003’s guilty pleasure is:

• T3: This doesn’t even really deserve to be a guilty pleasure. Other than Kristana Loken’s whole super hot, scarlet leather clad fembot shtick and the nano-bot stupidity, talk about deus ex machina, the movie is pretty solid! It’s very well paced with some ridiculous stunts and Nick Stahl and Claire Danes are both very good.  Arnold, well, he’s Arnold and  I really like that T3 has a much better ending than it’s predecessor!