+15
Unbreakable - Shyamalan offers some proof he is more than just a director of empty gimmicks and well studied set pieces (cribbed from his apparently very shallow pool of obvious influences). Unbreakable is a superhero movie with some emotional heft. And it doesn't limp along like most of this jackasses movies end up doing once he's splunked out the scenes he clearly spends all of his resources on. Is it a great movie? I can't remember. But I know I didn't throw my shoe at it.
Spider Man 2 - So it looks like we are descending into Hell territory for me. Spider Man 2 is better than Raimi's initial effort, which is atrocious. It's not a bad movie, but there is forever going to be something unforgivable for getting all of Spidermans action performed by a CGI stunt double. Completely sucks any kind of emotional investment in the actions scenes, as now not only are we watching a dumb superhero movie where we know he is basically immortal, but we also don't even get any sense of the gravity of the danger he is in. Still better, than 80 percent of most superhero movies though.
Batman Begins - This might have been on my list. A rare Nolan movie I really appreciated. And a superhero movie nonetheless. I think my fondness for it may be fueled by what probably drives most comic book purists squirrly about it. It is fixated almost entirely on origin story. It pulls us through the slog of training much in the same way the martial arts classic Enter the 36 Chambers does, and treats the actual villain threat as secondary. Some people apparently care that the Scarecrow's plot gets buried in all of this. That he is almost an irrelevant fart in the general direction of the movie. But this is what I came here for. It's subversion of what a superhero movie is supposed to do is what makes it exciting. Plots about world domination are so ********* boring, anyways.
Secret in Their Eyes - I remember this being a thing for awhile. Then I forgot about it. Never seen it and forgot it even existed.
V For Vendetta - Ugh. Barf. Shoot me. Further proof that the Wachowski's shot their load with the first Matrix movie and have consistently had nothing to offer cinema beyond sparkling and shiny excess ever since. Frankly, this was probably all the Matrix really was either, but it at least seemed fresh at the time. Incorporating ideas about the precarious nature of existence and reality into a mostly dumb movie filled with leather jacket hero worship. I liked that. Now with Vendetta, we have the Wachowski's trying to elevate dumb politics with nothing but a dumb movie to back it up. And it's just about as empty headed and lifeless as most political movements these days (maybe we can argue it was prescient.....but nope, I'm not going to do that)
Million Dollar Baby - Mystic River is better and I don't like Mystic River. Don't get the appeal of this, at all. Everything about it is ham fisted, no matter how much soberly lit scenes it is filled with. And I think Hillary Swank is straight up awful in this. Walking around like an over enthusiastic goober in boxing gloves is hardly charming to me. Another bit of barf has come up in my mouth over this one (even though it's inclusion was expected)
In Bruges - I know I enjoyed this, for whatever it was. And it probably indirectly led me to visit Bruges about ten years ago. Allowing me to bring with me the loudest burp ever heard in the history of mankind to a very small Brugesian pub. It nearly stopped the whole city dead in its tracks. Even the Ugly Americans sitting next to us wanted to run us out of town. They were all probably happy when they found me barfing on their cobblestone streets the next morning. And all because of this fun little movie about a town I'd never even heard of before.
Collateral - I hate Tom Cruise, but I like him in this. This is a good movie for what it is. Tense, full of great action and characters with interesting motivations, all of it dragging us through a moody city scape during nighttime. It's pure edgy and thrilling cinema. Didn't really consider it for my list, but I could have.
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