2003 - INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, a comedy from the Coen brothers.

A goofy comedy from the Coen Brothers about marriage and divorce.  Their oddball humor is very much present. With the assistance of their leading man George Clooney they continue to make Clooney act like an absolute fool.

Briefly, Clooney is a shark of a divorce attorney known for never losing a case.  He takes on a divorce where the husband played by Edward Herrmann picks up prostitutes and pretends he is the conductor on a train, (don't ask).  Herrmann's wife is played by Catherine Zeta Jones photographed to look her most glamorous.  After Jones loses the case thanks to shyster attorney Clooney, she swears revenge.  This kicks in lots of scenes with goofy characters and nutty situations involving scary rottweilers, asthmatic hit men and soap opera actors.

 

The Coens are known for their eccentric dialog and the scenes during the divorce court proceedings are funny.  However it does seem like the comedic invention and situations seems to sag about midway into the film.  Still this is a Coen Brothers film and they are always worth a look. 

 

Among the other actors involved in this film are Geoffrey Rush, Cedric the Entertainer, Richard Jenkins, Billy Bob Thornton, Julia Duffy and Jonathan Hadyley as a character named Heinz, the Baron Krauss von Espy, aka "Puffy." 

The film was written by Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone and Joel and Ethan Coen, the running time is 100 minutes.

2003 - SARABAND, Ingmar Bergman's final film.

At 84 years old Ingmar Bergman comes out of retirement and writes and directs this father /daughter drama and photographs it with a high definition video camera hardly the work of an old fuddy duddy.  In the supplemental content on the DVD, Bergman a man in his mid 80's is quite alert and spry.  In fact he looks better than Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann playing two of the four leads in this film.

Saraband has been called a sequel to Scenes From a Marriage but that's probably pushing it a bit.  True Josephson and Ullmann  are playing Johan and Marianne the names of their characters from Scenes From a Marriage but they don't really seem to act like the same people from that film.   Johan and Marianne are more observers than active participants in  this film.  But I suppose having two of his closest collaborators was important to Bergman for this film.

 

Saraband is basically focused on Johan's son Henrik and Henrik's daughter Karin.  Henrik is mentoring Karin on the cello in order for her to get a scholarship to a music academy.  However Henrik seems to have what they call an unhealthy interest in his daughter.  Henrik is also one of those tormented Bergman characters who you would probably call a loser.

 

This is a good Bergman film and I don't think anyone needs to make apologizes for Bergman's age.  Bergman was always good at portraying his characters thoughts, desires and insecurities throughout his career and this film is no exception.  There is also a prevailing feeling of death throughout the film which I suppose is not surprising coming from Bergman at this point in his life.  Saraband is an interesting and good film to wrap up his impressive film career.

Written by Ingmar Bergman, the running time is 112 minutes.

2003 - A MIGHTY WIND, clever spoof of early 60's folk music.

The third film in sort of an unofficial trilogy by Christopher Guest that started with Waiting For Guffman and Best In Show. I'm not counting This Is Spinal Tap since that was directed by Rob Reiner not Christopher  Guest.

A Mighty Wind is a gentle satire of folk music groups which were popular in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  The groups are now kind of past their prime to put it mildly.  A PBS like network stages a concert for this bunch of folk musician oldsters probably to be shown during one of those endless pledge drives they were always hammering the TV audience with.

Three groups are featured, "The Folksmen" playing some ridiculous song called "Old Joe's Place" which is about a greasy spoon diner somewhere in middle America.  "The New Main Street Singers" are a group of very white musicians fronted by a husband and wife who used to be a porno star. They also happen to be members of a witches coven.  

Then there is a folk duo called "Mitch and Micky" who were apparently involved in a relationship until they acrimoniously split up. Mitch is now clearly suffering from emotional problems while Mickey has moved on and married a catheter salesman for a medical distribution company.  Their plot line is actually kind of touching.

Christopher Guest by this point had developed a stock company of performers.  Michael McKeon, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, John Michael Higgins and as "Mitch and Micky,"  Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy.  Many of the performers wrote their own songs for this film.

A Mighty Wind doesn't have they real sharp satirical bite of Waiting for Guffman or Best In Show, but it's very entertaining in it's own way.  Christopher Guest seems to have great affection for this collection of over the hill musicians.

The film was written by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. the running time is 92 minutes.    

2003 - MEMORIES OF MURDER, good police procedural film.

Based on an actual case about the investigation of South Korea's first serial murder.  This is an extremely well made film.  In a small town in a rural part of South Korea the bodies of two women are found.  The police force in this area begin an investigation but it becomes clear that their lack of experience in this type of crime is way over their heads.  Arriving from Seoul to lend some expertise is a police inspector who begins to piece together the crimes.  This is the jumping off point for a film that looks at the emotional toll the investigation takes and at the same time manages to be a very involving thriller about a police investigation.

One of South Korea's best directors Bong Joon-Ho in only his second film directs with a very assured style.  Joon-Ho would go on to direct Parasite and The Host among other films he's been a filmmaker to watch.

 

The film has fine performances from the cast and the photography and editing is at a very high level.  The film has some sick humor and captures the lives of some police detectives who are barely going through the motions at their job.

Overall a very impressive sophomore film.  Usually new directors fall on their faces with their second film.  Not in this case.

Written by Bong Joon-ho and Shim Sung-bo the running time is 131 minutes.

2003 - TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES, 3rd film in the series

Pointless 3rd film in the Terminator series.  Ever since Terminator 2: Judgement Day someone is always trying to turn these Terminator films into a franchise.  The 2019 film, Terminator:  Dark Fate was just the latest non starter in a series nobody apparently wants to see.

Terminator 3, is basically a rehash of the first two films. Amazingly it took three writers to cobble this script together which is essentially a bunch of action scenes tied together by a plot involving the computer system Skynet getting ready to destroy the world. 

 

The antagonist in this film is a female Terminator who is more powerful than Schwarzenegger's outdated  T-800.  There's lots of smashing, bashing and blowing things up. The actors, with barely developed roles do what they can to make things interesting but it's all kind of pointless in the end.

 

Even as a time killer the film really can't seem to deliver.

Written by John Brancato, Michael Ferris and Tedi Sarafian. The film clocks in at 109 minutes.

2003 - HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE, can't miss cop buddy movie really misses.

Hard to know what happened with this one.  The writer director/writer Ron Shelton was an old pro.  Harrison Ford was a top star.  The cop buddy movie was usually a money in the bank genre for the movie studios.  But this one did miss.

Apparently Ford and his costar Josh Hartnett didn't get along and it shows.   They have absolutely no chemistry together. The film is redeemed by a decent action climax but it's probably a little late by then.  The film does have Lena Olin in it for the love interest which is sort of a compensation.

 

The film runs 116 minutes.  Shelton and his police advisor Robert Souza wrote it.

2003 - BAD BOYS II, it's another Michael Bay film

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are the stars in a sequel to Bad Boys a film that probably nobody wanted or needed to have a sequel .  But the real star of this movie is the director Michael Bay.  

Bay indulges himself with over the top action scenes in let's face it a story that absolutely no one could ever care about.  Smith and Lawrence are Miami cops trying to stop a big drug gang.  But they really are just a couple of pawns in Bay's action chessboard of a film.

At 147 minutes this crime/action stuff is probably way to long for it's own good.  But if you're in the mood for Bay's brand of film making, well there are worse ways to waste your time.

 

 

The so called screenplay was by Ron Shelton and Jerry Stab.

2003 - THE ITALIAN JOB, the remake

Because Hollywood is completely out of ideas, we have the remake of The Italian Job.

The producers kept the basic idea of the gold heist and the escape using Mini Coopers. To give them credit they did try to vary the plot for this film.  The action scenes have been hyped up, because that is what they do in remakes.  The problem is the sense of fun is completely missing from the film.

About the only thing to recommend it is Charllize Theron who is at the peak of her beauty.

 

The film was written by Donna Powers and Wayne Powers.

Running time is 110 minutes but it seemed a lot longer.

2003 - THE COMPANY, the flip side to The Red Shoes

The Company was made late in the career of Robert Altman.  The film was a passion project for the actor Neve Campbell since she has a producer and story credit on the film.

Altman was apparently reluctant to take on the film but it has a lot of his qualities.  The film follows a dance company for about a year in Chicago.  It is virtually a plot less film.  Although Neve Campbell and James Franco are in the main credits, if there is a main character at all its Malcolm McDowell playing "Mr. A,"  the director of the dance group.   McDowell is the complete opposite of the Lermontov character from The Red Shoes. Although focused, he's not going to drive has principal ballerina into suicide.

In fact the Neve Campbell character "Ry" is almost the complete opposite of Victoria Page the ballerina from the The Red Shoes.  She works as a cocktail waitress and actually gets hurt dancing

 This is an interesting, movie but it's lack of a story probably hurt any chance of commercial success.  I would still rate this as a very good late career film from Robert Altman.

 

Barbara Turner and Neve Campbell get story credit, the screenplay was written by Turner.

112 minutes.

2003 - LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE, another sequel

It's all about the franchise in the movie business.  Paramount was hoping to get a female Indiana Jones type of series going with the Lara Croft character so they tried again after Lara Croft Tomb Raider.

What they got was essentially the same film as the first one with Angelina Jolie again playing Lara Croft.  Jolie is supposed to be tough and sexy but still comes off as more scary than sexy.  This time they gave her a boyfriend who's a real hard ass.  When we are introduced to him, he's doing push ups upside down on the ceiling of his prison cell.

Instead of chasing after some silly time control gadget in the first film.  Lara Croft is now after Pandora's Box.  Yet another blatant steal from the Indiana Jones films.  Along with cribbing from Spielberg films, the film was edited by Spielberg's long time editor Michael Kahn but he can't spin much gold out of this mess of a movie.

At almost two hours long this film was even a chore to get through on the treadmill since it took a week to watch.

117 minutes, written by Dean Georgaris.

2003 - THE HUNTED - a pretty good thriller from William Friedkin

A pretty decent "crazy psycho war vet on the run" film from William Friedkin who actually manages to restrain himself from his own excesses. 

Tommy Lee Jones is the guy who trains special ops soldiers for secret missions, Benico del Toro is one of his soldiers who turns out to be a nutcase who runs around killing deer hunters in northwest Oregon because he can.  It's mano a mano with some pretty tough fight scenes between the two of them.

For a director who never met an excess that he wouldn't put on film this is a fairly restrained film considering how violent it is.  The action is tough but realistic, and there are no apparent over done special effects with computer imagery.  Connie Nielsen is the hot looking FBI agent assigned to the case but Friedkin is having none of that lovely dovey stuff in his film.

The film is a fast moving hour and a half.

94 minutes.

2003 - SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS, by the numbers

Another film about Sinbad, another larger than life adventure.  Sinbad fights a big animated monster. Sinbad falls in love with his best friend's girl, Sinbad's dog is a real cut up, etc.  

As is the way with animated features these days, the cast is full of Hollywood stars.  Brad Pitt is Sinbad, Michelle Pfeiffer is the love interest and Catherine Zeta Jones is the mythical creature Marina who is clearly a stand in for The Little Mermaid's sea witch Ursula.  These actors add nothing to this cartoon and I doubt anyone went to see this film because Brad Pitt was the voice of Sinbad.

Sinbad is a middle eastern character but you would never know it from the white bread animated characters and voices in fact it is impossible to even tell that is a story with middle eastern influences. 

The biggest problem with this film is that it is uninteresting.  The story is another of these hero's journey tales where at the end of the story he is a better human being for what he has gone through. sort of an updated version of Pinocchio.   On the positive side the film is pretty to look at.  Nice color and visuals that are easy on the eyes and no songs.

85 minutes

2003 - LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING day 3 watching this series

Coming in at a whopping 4 and 1/2 hours, The Return of the King was the shortest book in the Tolkein trilogy this film is something else.  A long padded out story line completely enthralled with it's own myth making self importance.  Nobody talks like a normal human being in this film almost every line of dialog is loaded with self important platitudes about duty, honor and legend. 

At this point in the trilogy, if you haven't read the books or seen the two previous films the plot is now incomprehensible.  However I have to give Peter Jackson credit he has stayed very faithful to the Tolkein books while orchestrating this extremely complicated production.  

Liv Tyler modeling what the well dressed elf woman wears around the home

.

Probably watching this trilogy over three nights was not the best way to view it.  However I am convinced that these extended edition DVD's really added nothing to the story.

  263 minutes, written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson.

2003 - CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE, sequel time

Such utter garbage.  The first Charlie's Angels film made a lot of money the sequel was inevitable.  Following the strict rules of Hollywood sequels, this film is essentially the first film except it's ramped up with more computer effects, the girls dancing in more dance sequences and the action sequences even more over the top and incoherent than the first film.  

It's clear that Bill Murray was the major reason the first film was successful.  Murray hated being involved involved in Charlie's Angels and declined to get mixed up with the sequel.  His presence is sorely missed.  Murray was clearly the glue that kept that film from falling completely apart.

The attempt to portray the "Angels" as sleazy and innocent at the same time completely fails.  Viewing this film has the effect of making the viewer feel like a dirty old man cruising Internet web sites to find dirty pictures of Hollywood starlets.

Charlie's Angels:  Full Throttle wants to be like a Quentin Tarantino film.  It's loaded with pop references from musicals, TV shows, Scorsese films and pop music.  Unlike Tarantino this film can't take all of those references and reinvent them into something original and entertaining.

Another forgotten sequel to a film based on a television show that was pretty crappy when it was on TV in it's original version .

106 minutes, screenplay by John August, Cormac Wibberley and Marianne Wibberley.

2003 - S.W.A.T., bash, bat, biff, bop, drub

Up scaling the TV show with lots of mindless big screen action and a plot that was probably from a left over story from the original series.  S.W.A.T. is another mediocre example of a film that the world really didn't need.

The film has a decent cast with the emphsis on Colin Farrell as the young cop who can face down the various hostage situations.  This is a film along with Miami Vice, The New World and Alexander among others that tried to turn Farrell into a movie star.  But for whatever reason none of these really caught on so he's been doing eccentric character parts for the most part. S.W.A.T. also stars everyone's favorite bad ass Samuel L Jackson but he's oddly restrained in this film.

The action scenes aren't much to get excited about and don't even elevate the film to the level of a good time killer.  Overall the whole film is a waste of time not even remotely fun.

117 minutes.

2003 - ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO, action film for boys between the age of 14.

More action junk from Roberto Rodriguez supposedly and hopefully the final film in is El Mariachi series. 

The film has Antonio Banderas as El Mariachi with his tricked out guitar that shoots bullets and bombs.  Banderas doesn't have to act much only point his guitar at people.  Selma Hayek gets second billing but is in the film about three minutes.  Somehow Rodriguez managed to lure Johnny Depp into this film as a mysterious CIA agent.   Depp's really the only reason to sit through this thing.
 

Obviously from the title, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Rodriguez wants to invoke the spirit of Sergio Leone but he really can't capture the epic feel of Leone's films.  Also, Leone was the master of the long shot and the close up, Rodriguez is the master of the spastic action scene which is about as far removed from Leone as you can get.

A violent time waster.

102 minutes.

2003 - THE DREAMERS, those French the are a naughty naughty bunch.

A French brother and sister and some American kid they pick up,  share their passion for film and lots of dirty stuff in their parent's apartment (the parents are on vacation), while all hell breaks out in Paris during the 1968 student riots.  Lots of kinky and dirty stuff results.

Where were these chicks in film school?

It's nice that some production company gave Bertolucci a bunch of money to indulge himself in this little romp, however you still have to sit through it. The film seems to be some sort of nostalgia wallow for Bernardo Bertolucci about the good old days in Paris attending the Cinémathèque Française, watching old movies "avec Nicholas Ray," and banging hot French girls (that seems questionable).  

The brother and sister live in some sort of semi incestuous relationship, and you have to sit through a lot of film trivia as they play little games where they quote movie lines and scenes to each other (would this even happen in real life?).  Throw in a little anti establishment stuff and you have... really not much.

Another picture of Eva Green.

What the film has to recommend it is well Eva Green, she looks pretty good.  Bernardo Bertolucci is known as a director who examines sensuality and carnal relationships which is code for he knows how to get young women to take their clothes off for his films.

Yet another picture of Eva Gree

A completely pointless film.

Hard to know if academy award winning director (which is plastered all over the DVD cover),  Bernardo Bertolucci was kidding with this film, the bigger concern should be that he wasn't.

112 minutes the screenplay is by Gilbert Adair.

2003 - PAYCHECK, pretty poor John Woo action film.

Ben Affleck has invented a machine that can read the future, he uses it to find out that Paycheck will be another film that destroys his career until he starts to reinvent himself as a director.  Uma Thurman uses the machine to find out that the producers will make her wear a really bad haircut throughout the film.  The director John Woo  also uses the machine to find out that this film will finally finish off his reputation as a once stylish action director.

The whole idea of a scientist getting his memory erased but leaving clues to find out what happened to him is I hate to say it again something that Alfred Hitchcock could have really developed.  John Woo doesn't seem to have a clue what to do with this concept except stage a lot of indifferent action scenes.

I suppose it was impossible for Woo, Affleck, and Thurman to turn down Steven Spieldberg's company Dreamworks.  In Hollywood you don't say no to Steven Spielberg even if it won't do anything for your career.

Paycheck is just another empty action film. 

119 minutes.

2003 - OLDBOY Korean revenge fantasy is well made if you like this type of film

This South Korean film, a revenge fantasy is really something to see if not experience.  Extremely well directed by Park Chan-wook, the film has a lot of violence and sadism running through out with an interesting if rather sick story wrapping it all up. 

A man is imprisoned in a room for 15 years with only a TV set to keep him company, he doesn't know why and at the end of his imprisonment he's released and only has five days to solve the mystery. 

Oldboy has a considerable reputation among cultists and film buffs and it's probably well deserved.  Park Chan-wook gets a lot of credit for making what is really a sick joke of a film as interesting as it is.  Oldboy has a lot of torture throughout the film, but for the most part it's filmed in such a way that it's left to the imagination although you really wouldn't know it.  

The South Korean's seem to have a way with this kind of exaggerated violence and what I would call main stream "torture porn."  They know how to make this stuff compelling.  Half of the time you are marveling at the film making skill while trying to decide if you should just shut the DVD off and have a stiff drink to forget the whole thing.

Oldboy is the middle part of some sort of revenge trilogy.  You have to wonder what the first and third films must be like.


120 minutes.