Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

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Twas once a skeptic to the quality of the film now am a believer that Disney can still trot out quality films. My Mea Culpa was to assume that even with such a cast as Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp aboard that this would be a stinker, but once more I was wrong. Gore Verbinski who did an excellent directing job in the recent thriller “The Ring” conveys the true spirit of swashbuckling films in “Pirates of the Caribbean”, a film that is very reminiscent of the old Errol Flynn Pirate epics that stunned audiences in the early 1900’s in its truest essence; the swashbuckling film genre is dead only recently being brought to the screen with the bland “Cutthroat Island” a film that had style but little substance.

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From Justin to Kelly (2003)

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Brothers and sistas, mothers and fathers, I come to you today not only as a megalomaniacal egotistic movie critic but as a fellow movie go-er! Thus I have witness the plight that is “From Justin to Kelly”! Can I get a amen?!

If I asked you (the reader) who watches “American Idol” I’d probably receive an onslaught of hands raised followed by cheering; but if I asked you how many people went to see this film, I’d without a doubt be welcomed with deafening silence and a few mutters, thus Americans finally knew the extent FOX was willing to milk their cash cow known as “American Idol”! Can I get a amen?!

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American Wedding (2003)

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I’m a fan of “American Pie”; I loved that movie, I thought it was very funny and the closest we’ll get to a classic comedy of the modern era, I mean what other movie featured such a hilarious sight as a guy having sex with a pie? Then there was “American Pie 2”, not exactly a creative title for a sequel, and all in all it was a mediocre film with a mediocre plot. There were minimal laughs, obvious jokes and puns, and nothing else to feature, then with a further saturation, there’s “American Wedding”.I was strictly against a third film in the “American” series, and now it’s clearly evident my instinct was right all along.

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A Man Apart (2003)

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a_man_apartDiesel stars as Sean Vetter a DEA agent who with his friend Demetrius Hicks are in the midst of taking down a brutal drug cartel led by Memo Lucera (Geno Silva); after busting him and taking down the crime ring that they’ve spent seven years investigating, Sean finally can take some off-time. Enter wife Stacy, the loving beautiful wife to the character of Sean. By now, if you haven’t seen the movie, you can guess what will happen next, and do I even have to tell you anything else besides the fact that she becomes a motivation for vengeance? Watch the trailer and you won’t even have to see the movie. Simply because the plot twist is predictable and formula.

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Bringing Down The House (2003)

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MPW-18162This movie presents a common comedy formula often ensured to bring laughs but hardly do they ever and “Bringing Down the House” tackles the formula head-on: upper class white family is intruded by hip black person, hip black person lives with upper class white family, teaches upper class white father to appreciate kids and wife more and upper class white family grow to love hip minority. In a star vehicle of this kind I expected what I’d heard of “Non-stop laughs”; sure someone who watches comedies lately knows to never listen to hype, and boy was this film hyped.

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Bowling for Columbine (2002)

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We’re raised at early ages to fear in America, and we’re also bombarded with images of violence and sex, so much so it becomes numbing. As many of us have periodic moments of violence, many of the people in this tend to look at violence with a sort of comfort, almost as if they perceive violence to be apart of life, almost expected of us. Such is shown when a man accused of aiding the Uni-bomber sticks a gun to his head to demonstrate the accuracy of his gun. In another part of the world, a young boy in kindergarten shot another classmate; why he did what he did is never explained, or perhaps it can’t be explained. When asked why he did so, he replied with an uncertain answer; perhaps he was angry, or mentally disturbed, but that seems too easy. No one is really sure why he shot another student, but it seems the young boy simply shot her; almost as if it was an expected course of action, a first response.

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Phone Booth (2003)

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phone-boothMaster horror director Alfred Hitchcock had a theory that continues to apply to thrillers even today, he theorized that if you take a tense moment and stretch it out as long as possible you can keep the audience on the edge of their seat, biting their nails and sweating at the thought of an oncoming jolt, that if you stretch it long, it will have more of a lasting effect on the audience than if you hit them with one instant jolt which they will inevitably forget. Many of today’s horror and thrillers prefer to use the latter which, despite always getting a reaction, isn’t always effective, “Phone Booth” uses Hitchcock’s method in the most purest sense and gives a fond remembrance of the days when a thriller actually used its title “Thrill”, and what “Phone Booth” does is surely thrill in rare form.

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