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I'm not going to do a top to bottom list of all 50 movies I saw this summer -- I'll spare you and save that for the end of the year recap. And please feel free to attack my choices -- I get paid to take the abuse (well, sorta).
First of all, I do indeed think this summer was worse than last summer, which itself was worse than the one before. This summer was so bad (and I did see most of these movies several times thanks to my projectionist privileges, giving me insight to "mistaken ratings" in my original reviews) that I could only produce a top 4 list:
TOP FOUR MOVIES
Though I saw "Nurse Betty" and "Almost Famous" in August, they weren't released to the general public in August, so I'm not counting them here -- otherwise, they would be # 1 and # 2 respectively. (And "Way of the Gun" would either be 2 or 3.)
1. Gladiator -- It's FARRRRRRR from perfect, suffering from several boring spots, some ridiculous one-liners ("Unleash Hell!"), peculiar historical inaccuracies, wooden performances, overly simplistic revenge plot and an absurdly melodramatic ending… what was my point again? Oh, yeah, it was the best of this summer's sorry lot, with strong acting from Crowe, outstanding visuals and the best action scene of the year -- a true summer epic. It definitely won't be the same on video. I suspect this will be the only summer movie to garner a significant number of Oscar nominations, but I don't know if it'll get Best Picture or not.
2. East is East -- The strongest cast of the entire bunch, and a solid, effective story to boot. You can say all you want about what kind of morals it espouses, but at least it does say something. For the year I'm probably going to rank it ahead of "Gladiator," but as this is a summer survey and "East is East" isn't much of a traditional summer movie (plus I actually JUST saw it), I let "Gladiator" keep its number 1 ranking it had up until a few days ago. But make no mistake about it -- "East is East" is better than "Gladiator" in numerous ways.
3. Chicken Run -- Certainly not a kid's movie that adults can enjoy in the same sense that "Toy Story" was a kid's movie that adults can enjoy because it's too dark and British, but it's rather clever, humorous and original, and it has one of those endings that simply makes you feel good.
4. Virgin Suicides -- Unlike this movie's ending. Perhaps it would have been a more appropriate winter movie. But it was released during the summer, so I can't really count the fact that it's not much of a "summer movie" against it. The script is both the best thing and the worst thing about the movie, as it's extremely well-written but ultimately sort of tails off at the end. Great cinematography, score and acting by all involved, particularly Dunst, Turner and Woods.
SLIGHTLY HONORABLE MENTION (alphabetical order):
Autumn In New York -- basically, I don't want to hear any objections unless you actually saw the movie with your own two eyes. Outstanding cinematography (almost no critic argued against that), musical score and acting from Ryder livened up an otherwise run-of-the-mill love story.
Bossa Nova -- Only saw this one once, so maybe I wouldn't think so much of it the second time around, but the good acting and intricate way all of the stories (and languages) intertwined were good enough for me to risk putting it in this category.
Cecil B. DeMented -- Really, it's not even as fun as Waters' "Pecker" and it preaches for FAR too long, but Dorff is at his all-time best, Griffith is pretty good and the script is absolutely brilliant in spots -- and ludicrous in others.
The Cell -- I'd like to say there wasn't a more unique looking movie this year -- however, director Singh already made a half-dozen music videos that look almost exactly like it, so that's not really true. Great as eye and ear candy but a near-failure as a serial killer movie or "Matrix"-type sci-fi flick or police action-adventure because of bad plot points and underutilized actors. Most likely it will receive a bunch of Oscar technical nominations, nothing else.
Jesus' Son -- Far too derivative of other heroin-addict movies, particularly "Trainspotting," but excellent performances all around (except the always ultra-annoying Jack Black), good score, good cinematography and good for a few good black humor laughs.
Mission: Impossible 2 -- Don't watch this movie a second time. It's the only way to keep your amazement at the Woo- tastic action intact from the first viewing (with all apologies to Bickle). The Hans Zimmer score (not to mention the Limp Bizkit theme song) stay beautiful upon repeated listens, though. I just can't watch it EVER again.
The Patriot -- It's actually easier to count the things this jingoistic, melodramatic, emotionally uneven slop got right than the things it got wrong. The scene in which Benjamin Martin and his two young sons shoot up the British is one of the best of the year, plus there's some damn good cinematography, but even the war scenes were quite lackluster. The only way this movie is getting any Oscar nominations beyond Best Costume Design, Cinematography and Art Direction is if ALL the winter releases seriously SUCK.
Perfect Storm -- The interesting thing about the third highest grossing movie of the year is that even the special effects weren't all that good, much less the horrid character development and sloth-like first half… yet there's still something rather compelling about the sinking, in a "Titanic" sort of way...
Small Time Crooks -- The first half, involving Woody Allen's hilarious inept criminals, would have been a 9 or 10 out of 10, but the second half falls apart somewhat when it turns into a New York version of "The Beverly Hillbillies."
Sunshine -- The worst part about it is not the 3 hour run time, but that it feels like a Ralph Fiennes vanity project from the second hour onward. It would have been a much more effective movie had he only played one character instead of three. Otherwise, it was a beautifully shot, thematically deep epic that would normally get a winter release and I wouldn't be terribly shocked if it (somewhat undeservedly) gets a few major Oscar nominations. It was too dull to get my unabashed seal of approval. (I'm a little worried about Ralph -- did he somehow get trapped in WWII? Seems like he's always a Nazi persecuting Jews, a Jew being persecuted by Nazis, an Englishman watching as Nazis persecuting Jews -- if it weren't for "Strange Days" and "Quiz Show," would he have any range at all?)
X-MEN -- The whole damn thing was nothing more than a set- up for "X-MEN 2: Electric Boogaloo." Other than that (which was SUPREMELY annoying), and a RIDICULOUS one-liner from Storm, I really can't think of much that was wrong with this movie -- but it's definitely not on the same level as "Batman."
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