The Best Movies of the Year that Wuz: Part Deux ½

Continuing in that fine week-old Cinemania tradition of highlighting what wuz the best thing about going to the theatres in 2003.

Gerry

Hiking for Godot. An existential Blair Witch Project. The daemon, it turns out, ain’t in the woods, it’s lurking here (points to chest) deep within the darkest corners or yer everlastin’ soul. Two lads (Matt Damon, CASEY Affleck) out for a hike in the wilderness are looking for "the thing at the place," but instead the fellas end up at the end of the world, which turns out to look a lot like a giant salt bed. Damon and

Affleck are well-cast as cocky kids who play at life—conversations tend to degenerate into "game talk"—but who are ill-prepared when the play gets real.

More Catch Up

The Magdalene Sisters

A dark and unrelentingly grim tale--while often dripping in bitter irony, the movie’s sole moment of poetic justice and biting humour is quickly and dramatically subterfuged. The Magdalene Sisters is reminiscent of Tim Roth’s confessional horror The War Zone, as both are based on actual events, both involve unconscionable acts of cruelty and betrayal, and both have an unremittingly bleak tone that threatens to swamp the audience in its misery.

Playing Catch Up

Spider

You can catch this new release in its pretty spanky new DVD (it really is a good-looking transfer, with solid featurettes and an informative commentary by Cronenberg), Spider has all the proverbial earmarks of superb craftsmanship, as Cronenberg’s trademark keen eye and use of sound do a fine job of capturing the singularly strange subjective p-o-v in this private study of one man’s living hell.

Review Links (Alpha ordered)

2046 (2004) 87/100

8 Mile (2002) 71/100

19 Months (2002) 62/100

Agent Cody Banks: Destination London 33 1/3/100

All the Real Girls (2003) 88/100

American Gun 53/100

At Five in the Afternoon (2003) 76/100

Beauty and the Beast (1946) 88/100

The Bourne Supremacy (2004) 85/100

Breakfast With Hunter (2002) 64/100

Bus 174 (2003) 89/100

Butterfly Effect (2004) 55/100

Le Cercle Rouge 1970) 83/100

City of God (2003) 88/100

Cellular (2004) 63/100

Code 46 (2004)
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