Sunday, March 19, 2023

Picks of 2003

It may have been the year of Captain Jack Sparrow, that song off Daredevil, and a blasphemous remake of The Italian Job with Marky Mark, but my personal film highlights from 2003 ranged in featuring obvious throwbacks to old school genre cinema, unapologetic cartoon violence and humour, and scream queens in white tank tops and low-rise jeans.

Bad Boys II (Michael Bay)

Bad Santa (Terry Zwigoff)

Beyond Reanimator (Brian Yuzna)

Elf (Jon Favreau)

Final Destination 2 (David R. Ellis)

Freddy vs. Jason (Ronny Yu)

Haute Tension (Alexandre Aja)

The Hunted (William Friedkin)

Johnny English (Peter Howitt)

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (Quentin Tarantino)

Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-Ho)

Oldboy (Park Chan-Wook)

Ong-Bak (Prachya Pinkaew)

A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Jee-Woon)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Marcus Nispel)

Wrong Turn (Rob Schmidt)

Zatoichi (Takeshi Kitano)

Films which I didn't include as I'd only watched once ages ago, but remember liking at the time include: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Open Range, Old School, Biker Boyz and Big Fish.

Say whatever you want about the match-up of the century that was Freddy vs. Jason, but it had what was undoubtedly the best ever promotional event for a film, in my humble opinion.

Freddy vs. Jason (Promo Event)
Las Vegas, 2003 

6 comments:

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Would add School Of Rock to the hall of fame, and Hulk to the hall of shame. Eric Bana deserved better.

Spartan said...

Yeah, Hulk truly was abysmal.

Most heads forget or are unaware Jack Black played Titus, the trustafarian pot head, in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and I wish I was one of them.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

I definitely forgot about that cameo 😄

Spartan said...

Unrelated, but have you read that hilarious take on The Whale in the The Guardian earlier this month? Not even sure if it's serious or trolling in today's current climate.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

😂 I've read some of her articles before. She's the worst.

I hear The Whale sucks, but I'm happy the don Brendan Fraser bagged himself an Oscar. Overcharging the industry for not recognising The Mummy trilogy as the true heir to Indiana Jones

Spartan said...

I'll be amazed if she was actually paid to write that tripe.

Was planning to avoid The Whale, but I might just check it out as a metaphorical F.U to her, though.