What he said.

Alien 3.

The doom, atmosphere and images in this are among the series' strongest.

"The Golden Compass" is not a terrible film. And I thought "Superman Returns" was fantastic. "The Island"...now that surprised me. Came on cable and I didn't turn it off. Thoroughly enjoyable and yes, SJ never looked better.

The Island
Daredevil
Punisher

All great choices .

Dick Tracy - Pacino himself said it's as if the movie never even existed, and that boggles my mind. It's a fantastic movie with a great cast.

Last Days
Gerry
Brown Bunny
Japón
Twentynine Palms (2003)
? These are all respectable art-house films with a lot of love, except maybe for Brown Bunny and 29 Palms...You should add Ken Park to your list (which was a truly awful film)


I feel like Last Days caught tons of hate - with IMO some good reason. It was pretty shambolic and irritating.

Gerry was just roundly misunderstood. Fantastic film, I think..

Ang Lee's Hulk was not great, but nowhere near as bad as everyone seems to think, with some great action (eventually) that I think perfectly captured Hulk-ness.

definitely Armaggedon! How can anyone not cry at the end?

Daredevil. Still don't think it was all that bad, although Garner's Elektra was awful.

True Lies

My favorite of Van Sant's artsy films is Elephant. Don't think a lot of people like that but I love it.

I know it's a bold statement but The Phantom Menace is the best movie of the prequels. It had Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn and Ray Parker as Darth Maul -- 2 of the best characters in prequel trilogy. Jake Lloyd was bad but he was just playing a dumb kid. Hayden Christensen on the other hand, was the protagonist, he was the guy we were supposed to be paying attention to, and he was horrible. Yeah, it had Jar Jar Binks but it didn't have the worst thing ever... Yoda spinning around like Sonic the Hedgehog. So, that's my unpopular opinion.

I agree with these as well. I enjoy them all.

Actually, the director chose to withdraw the film on his own based on Vincent Canby's first review and the studio supported his decision. The first cut was five hours long. The studio meddling occurred only because Cimino was out of control. (See FINAL CUT by Steven Bach.)

I'll add one that isn't a great movie, but is damned entertaining and completely achieves the goal that the filmmakers set out to achieve -

Stealth

They're too busy laughing?

The advertisting was too cryptic. Even though the movie looked action-packed, the taglines kept asking "what is the island" and no footage really seemed to answer the question. The first 1/2 was good, but the movie kind of falls apart when it turns into a typical Michal Bay blowemup fest.

Completely agreed. Even when I was a kid, I really enjoyed this one, and it holds up beautifully. The problem is not that it was bad, but people weren't expecting Alien 3, then were expecting Aliens 2, and this wasn't that film.

Alien 3 is a great film. Even if its not what it should or could have been.
Yes, Its pretty depressing the route they took and the story they decided to go with with all the possibilites they could have chosen from but nevertheless the final 2.5 hour edit DVD version is one hell of a dramatic film. Would I have liked to have seen the film be something more like Aliens? Yeah, probably and I guess in that since I'm disappointed but I cant deny the fact that what we were given is a very strong film on its own. Alien 4 however is something that tries to be more like Aliens and fails so I guess I am glad in the end what Alien 3 became. At least its its own creature and now an imagination-free monster movie with a weak unoriginal script.

I've been saying for a couple of years now TPM is the most "fun" of the prequels. I'm glad to see people coming back around to liking this film. I remember I loved it when it came out, then I got swept up in all the hate but I've come back to liking it (as deeply flawed and problematic as it is). On a minor tangent, I'm kinda disappointed in how Lucas just pushed Jar Jar to the background in 2 and 3, instead of tweaking the character and redeeming him. When I was on theforce.net boards way back when, I remember reading posts from the more literate members about how we should be patient and see how he plays out, that he was a classic "Chekhov's gun" and he would pay off in Ep 3. Very disappointed that didn't happen.



Also have to throw in votes for Superman Returns, Alien 3, and even Ghostbusters 2. I kinda did the same thing with G2 that I did with TPM. I enjoyed it when it came out, then hated it, then just a year or two ago we were watching it on one of the HD cable channels and it was a *lot* better than I recalled.

Problem Child 2
Schindler's List
Cops: Too Hot For TV
North Shore

Agreed:
Alien3 - wonderfully dark. Sigourney does her best acting of the series in one of the workprint scenes with Charles Dance.
Alien vs. Predator - while I'd have liked an R-rating, it's well-paced and entertaining.
Hannibal - Julianne Moore isn't as good as Jodie Foster, but this is still an elegantly made film.
The Island - fun and exciting. What do you want, it's a summer movie!
The Matrix Reloaded/The Matrix Revolutions - Reloaded more than Revolutions, but people say Revolutions is all bad -- the Zion stuff is pretty good.
Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace - The closest in tone to the original Star Wars films of the three prequels. Jar Jar sucks, but the rest is solid.
Superman Returns - A very good, triumphant and fun superhero movie. The upbeat cousin of Batman Begins.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - Great, great car chase scene, highly entertaining Arnold, and a killer ending.
Waterworld - Very Mad-Maxian.

I'll add:
Bad Boys II - Blows SO MUCH STUFF UP I just can't help but enjoy it after awhile. I've never seen a more destructive movie. You could certainly lop out nearly 40m though.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - Doesn't follow any of the games, and is pretty melodramatic, but it's a visual wonder and some of it is really good.
Ocean's Twelve - Yes, there's no heist. That is the point. The first movie's heist is big. It's hard to go bigger. So the sequel goes smaller. The stars look a little self-absorbed, but Twelve is still fun.
Scooby-Doo - The most flawed of any of the ones I listed, but you can still see most of the sharper, PG-13 movie left inside the PG shell that's on the screen.
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny - Sure, the D rehash the essence of their stuff, and it's not as R-rated as the first CD, but this is still a very funny movie.
U.S. Marshals - Just caught my eye on the shelf. Sure, it's pretty similar to the first. That includes Tommy Lee Jones, who is every bit as good in Marshals as he is in The Fugitive.

Are you talking about the live action with Sarah Michelle Gellar? I never knew there was a PG 13 cut, sounds very interesting.

The only thing that really bothered me with Waterworld was how unrealized the potential of the movie was. I always feel really curious about what life is like in Waterworld, as well as the gradual struggle of mankind over the ages. Hell, it could have been a 2.5 hour long movie about daily life on an Atoll and I would have found it entertaining. In fantastically realized sci-fi worlds, even the mundane is exciting.

It was originally more in-jokey. Even in the PG version, there's really strong allusions to Velma being a lesbian, there's a mild pot reference, and the body-switching plotline and Annette Funicello style in which the theme park customers become zombified all seem like they were intended for an older audience. I read in a newspaper article that there were more references, and some of them are in the deleted scenes. Freddie Prinze Jr. has also gone on record as saying the film they made isn't the one he signed on to make.

I agree with:

- Gangs of New York:
This is what Scorsese should've got Best Picture for. Plus Departed of course

- Matrix Reloaded
Not a big Matrix fan, but I find this one to be my favorite of the three.

- Quantom of Solace
The bar was set too high with CR. Length was the biggest problem going in, but it didn't even feel like it.

- Superman Returns
Shame there'll be no sequel. Toss up between this and II for best Supes

- Star Wars prequels
One minute I love them, the next I hate them. But all are better than IV and VI. You can't touch Empire.


- The Golden Compass
I know there's a big difference from the book, but if you ignore the source, it's good.


Adding:
-Indy 4
First time I saw it I hated it, but it grew on me. I even like nuke the fridge.