Your top 5 of the year so far...
 

What are your top five films from 2003 so far?

Here is Kong's list:
*Kong is going by U.S. release dates.


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5. The Good Thief

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4. Finding Nemo

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3. Better Luck Tomorrow

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2. Nowhere in Africa

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1. Hero

In case you are wondering, here's a list of the other film's Kong has seen from 2003: Holes, Old School, Identity, The Matrix Reloaded, Willard, Just Married, Levity, The Italian Job, Final Destination 2, Shanghai Knights, The Dancer Upstairs, Whale Rider, A Mighty Wind, 28 Days Later, The Recruit, Confidence, X2, Bruce Almighty, The Core, Daredevil, Dreamcatcher, Down With Love, Hulk, He Loves Me He Loves Me Not, The In-Laws, Hollywood Homicide, Dumb and Dumberer, and Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary.

Oh, not too much special thus far in the year. I'd say the best five I've seen have been A Mighty Wind, City of Ghosts, The Good Thief, 28 Days Later and Laurel Canyon.

Kong gave A Mighty Wind, and 28 Days Later both *** of ****. Unfortunately Kong didn't have money to see Laurel Canyon when it played here (it only played 7 shows), and City of Ghosts still hasn't come out around here.

Did you see He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, or Better Luck Tomorrow?

How did you see 28 days later if you're from the US? Did you just get the DVD from ebay?

Nope, didn't see either one.

Laurel Canyon is only a little above average, saved by a nice performance by McDormand, but I simply haven't seen much else worth even mentioning.

Thus far my top 5 fav's are: I guess in no particular order...
Old School
Bruce Almighty
The Recruit
X-Men 2
I don't know about the 5th one...so surrrrrry:(

Oh, and yes, I have a region-free DVD player, so I simply bought the R2 28 Days Later disc a few weeks ago (though not on eBay).

Does Kong always talk in first person? kool_moo does not like people who talk in first person... lol kool_moo is just kidding ;)

I think The Matrix: Reloaded is the best BTW

Ummm, actually, Kong always talks in third person, hardly ever in first. Kong is silly that way. Holden finds it boring, but seems to make Kong happy, so whatEVER.

Slay think monkey crazy. But he funny, so Slay forgive.

1] Far From Heaven
2] Secretary
3] The Hours
4] The Matrix Reloaded
5] Catch Me If You Can

Others I've seen:
* * * * Frida - 8 Femmes - 25th Hour - How To Lose A Guy... - Gangs Of New York - LOTR: TTT - Moonlight Mile - Alexandra's Project - Chicago - The Quiet American
* * */ Phone Booth - Just Married - Two Weeks Notice - Solaris - Anger Management - Better Luck Tomorrow
* * * Who is Cletis Tout? - Daredevil - About Schmidt - 8 Mile - Bringing Down The House - One Hour Photo

These aren't in order, but: Raising Victor Vargas, Marooned in Iraq, Spider, City of God, and All the Real Girls are the best I've seen this year. Honorable mention goes to X-Men 2, which just totally rocked.

Can't wait for the Guy Maddin flick. The Dracula ballet or whatever. It's gonna be awesome. :yup:

My least favorite movie this year is definitely Better Luck Tomorrow, since it's wholly unoriginal and encourages its depraved protagonists to go on to college, etc rather than pay for what they did. In all my hatred for Bully, at least in that movie the kids paid for what they did. Better Luck Tomorrow pats them on the wrist.

Plus, the director, Justin Lin, is on Fincher's nuts like it's going out of style. The movie looked like a Michelle Branch video, except with Asians.

Kong has been dying to see all of the films on your top five, but hasn't had the oppurtunity. Kong is also looking forward to Maddin's film Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary

Kong shares your dislike of Bully, but obviously not your dislike of Better Luck Tomorrow. Kong doesn't feel that film has to be judge, jury, and executioner. There are times where that may be appropriate, but BLT takes on the role of witness instead. There are people in this world who aren't existentialists, and who are willing to rationalize just about anything, and the characters in BLT are examples. History is filled with people who commit crimes, and then, seeing the oppurtunity to avoid punishment, never pay for them. It appears that depicting such people is simply not to your taste.

Although I may not agree with what you have to say; for instance, I don't believe that movies have to be a vehicle for moral justice, you deserve a million dollars for for those last two sentences alone.

Kill Bill is my number 1, and i haven't even seen it yet.
Can't wait.....any.....longer.....:furious:

Thanks. :D

I don't think that all movies need to uphold morality, but some more than others have a responsibility to their audience and to their characters. The main character in Better Luck Tomorrow thinks nothing of what he's done and looks to the future with high expectations - this strikes me as either a)unbelievable, since Ben is basically the only one in the group with any type of moral compass, or b)a sorry attempt at postmodern cynicism. Both interpretations lead to the same conclusion: the movie is phony.

Same here i watched the teaser about 15 times in a row nearly Crying because i just cant wait

If you didn't notice, from the very beginning the film showed that Ben was able to ignore his moral compass. Ben rationalizes his actions. People do it all the time.

Kong all 4 of the moives you listed have not been released in Australia :( :( :mad: :mad: :furious:

You'll definitely get the chance to see Finding Nemo, and The Good Thief, but Kong isn't sure if the other two have theatrical distribution plans in Australia. You might have to wait for the DVDs of those, but maybe not...


Steve, have you seen any other Guy Maddin films? The only one Kong has seen is Tales From the Gimli Hospital and, although Kong enjoyed it's visual style, he didn't think there was enough story to justify it's length (which is pretty short anyways). Kong was thinking of checking out Careful next. Have you seen it? What did you think of it? Anything else of his that you'd recommend?