The MRFH 2003 Revue

How on earth we’ve managed to get to 2004 I really couldn’t say.

To be honest, I was convinced that by 2004 we’d either be flying our bubble jets to the moon on weekends and taking the matter transporter to work, or that we’d be living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated by talking kangaroos, mutants, insane ex-policemen, and Tina Turner. However, it seems that Hollywood is no better at predicting the future than I am at picking winning lottery numbers, so once again I’m faced with the prospect of looking back and figuring where the heck the last 365 days went. For the first time, however, I have an audience of the ten or so of you who haven’t flicked past this page to read Kyle’s tales of kinky Southern California style-dalliances, so I guess I’ll talk about some movie stuff as well.

January

What I can remember specifically about last January you could probably write with big marker between the end of this sentence and the beginning of the next. The only real events of note that I can remember were seeing Fight Club in the cinema again, confirming it’s place in my pantheon of Great Films, and my first post on a little forum community attached to a kooky movie review website that some of you might have heard of.

In film, I went to see Gangs of New York and Star Trek: Nemesis that I can recall (hooray for saving ticket stubs). Gangs of New York was totally ruined for me by virtue of seeing it with, in addition to a few other people, a pair of Professors of American History, who took great pleasure in explaining the historical inaccuracies in the film. Nemesis was about as stimulating as 2 hours of wet-paint watching, and confirmed my belief that Next Generation should have been put out to pasture after First Contact. My Mum liked it though.

February

February was memorable for me in that it contained my most recent thespian experience (that was THESPIAN experience, you dirty minded people you) as I played, Eddie, a TV obsessed nerd, in a play so memorable I can’t remember what it was called. I received no Valentines cards this year.

Daredevil was the big February film; I can’t say it really did much for me, but I, like many people I know, enjoyed Colin Farrell as Bullseye more than the rest of the film put together. Though, to be honest, I’d quite like to watch two hours of anyone throwing spiky items at Ben Affleck nowadays.

March

My parents buy a house in Spain to retire to; I immediately book a lump of holidays for August, but my dreams of a free holidays and beer in the sun are squashed by the words “You will help us move out there, won’t you?”. My other usual annual tradition of buy my ticket to Glastonbury Music Festival is also whitewashed by my sister inconveniently deciding to have her wedding on same weekend as the festival. I find myself amazed that my family would make these kind of plans without considering how easy it will be for me. For shame!

March was also Grammaton Cleric month, as Equilibrium had me diving round corners pointing my fingers at people and going bang, and saying “...not entirely without incident” a lot. I also saw The Life of David Gale which I thought was OK, but there weren’t enough people slicing other people up with katanas for my taste. Little was I to know that Kill Bill, Vol 1 was just a few months away...

April

April begins what I affectionately know as ‘the 3 months of stress’, as both my sisters wedding and my parents impending retirement, as well as a bunch of work at work, leave everyone a little skittish, and I don’t mean ‘inclined to perform small amusing sketches or plays’.

As a result, the only film I see in April is Phone Booth, which I liked so much I considered buying it on DVD (An accolade only 8 films have achieved with me so far), which I found amazing as it was directed by Joel Schumacher, who I believe had a Film Jihad announced against him after he directed Batman & Robin, arguably the worst Hollywood Major Release in History (see Dungeons & Dragons for its only competition). It just goes to show that as long as its not a superhero film, Mr. Schumacher isn’t half bad.

April also had the UK release of Bulletproof Monk. A-ha. A-ha-ha. Hahahahahahahahahahaha. Thank you.

May

More work, more stress, and very little else. Oh, one small thing; remember that forum I mentioned? A request for new review writers is put out. Because I’m a vastly frustrated journalist at heart, I apply.

In film, it’s battle of the sequels as Matrix Reloaded and X-Men 2 both arrive within weeks of each other. Despite all the Reloaded nay-sayers, I really liked it, and thought it nicely lay the ground for a spectacular finish to the series, which, I guess, should have been my first clue as to the big bowl of disappointment soup that was coming my way later in the year; and X-Men 2 was nicely high quality, franchise-boosting stuff which continued to show that superhero films, done right, can be fantastic box-office attractions. Ang Lee somehow misses all this while in post-production for The Hulk, however.

Richman and his Movie-Fighting Computer

June

Wedding fever is go, my parents are set to retire in the sun two weeks later, and just about everyone is on the verge of multiple nervous breakdowns. My favourite cousin has a little girl, and her christening proves a great opportunity for the whole family to get together, leaving the women to gurgle baby noises while the menfolk found the bar. Also, I officially join the ranks of the MRFH as my Memento review appears on the site to no reaction whatsoever from the Hollywood community. To this day, I am still waiting for an interview with Entertainment Tonight.

With even less time that last month, the only film I manage to see is Wrong Turn, which I make a special effort to see because it featured the sultry presence of my future bride-in-my-dreams Ms. Eliza Dushku. It’s unfortunately so middle of the road that I emerge from the theatre with a series of white lines down me.

July

My sister gets married; my parents move to Spain -- I play a role in both of these and as a result spend most of July rushing around like a headless chicken and get nothing else done.

With the exception, that is, of seeing The Hulk, in which I am amazed that Ang Lee manages to take a character who’s main catchphrase is ‘Hulk Smash’ and turn it into a character study of the relationship between a son and his father. I come out of the film feeling strangely cheated and with a burning desire to hit tanks with other tanks.

August

A wonderful month. My parents are safely in Spain, my sister is safely married, and it’s my birthday. I get a wonderful selection of pointless toys and presents, and lots and lots of free time. Coupled with an interesting group of summer releases, I head to the movies a lot.

And I see: Terminator 3, which amazes me by not making me hate it. Sure, its mostly just ‘Terminator 2 with a girl’, but it nicely wrapped things up while making everyone hope for a 4th installment; Pirates of the Caribbean becomes one of my favourite films of the year mainly due to Jonny Depp; Freddy vs. Jason also fails to disappoint, giving me 3 good films in 3 weeks. That run is bought screeching to a halt as I am one of the 5 people on earth who goes to see Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life during opening week. Predictably, it’s awful.

September

September slips by virtually unnoticed, featuring nothing more exciting that some major car repairs. However, so traumatised am I by how bad Tomb Raider was, coupled with a not-so-interesting batch of films, that I barely go to the flicks at all in September, content to throw my money at Blockbuster instead. I am almost tempted to go and see Gigli after the critical slating it received, but think better of what I can do with the money at the last minute, and promptly just throw it down the nearest gutter and return home, saving myself an hour and a half and much mental anguish.

October

Ironically, the closer we get to now, the less I can remember about what happened to me during that month...odd, no? Once more, October was one of those ‘same old, same old’ months; no major happenings of any kind, and sadly, not much to shout about in cinemas either. I went to see Bad Boys 2 because I’d enjoyed the first one a lot, and I enjoyed the second one as well, but not so much. And then I went to see League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which was so sadly rubbish that I went to Alan Moore’s house, where we read the original graphic novels out loud, and consoled each other with hot chocolate*.

*That’s probably not true.

November

Strangely, this month was my ‘biggest cinematic anticipation’ month, as two films for which I had been eagerly awaiting were released in quick succession. Underworld came first, and despite it being horribly mock-worthy, it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it might be, and I came out of the theatre with mixed feelings, like someone had slapped me in the face, then slipped £20 into my wallet. Then, hilariously, came Matrix: Revolutions; to this day, I envision the Wachowski brothers laughingly sipping champagne from golden goblets while dancing an grotesque and obscene jig on the remnants of my hopes and dreams. Curse you, Wachowski Brothers!!

November was also notable for another reason, but I’m not telling you what that was because, well, that’s a different feature (eventually). Watch this space!

December

And now, we’re back to only a few days ago. I went back over to Spain to spend the holidays with my parents, and managed to vastly improve my terrible Spanish, get exceedingly drunk a multitude of times, and generally enjoy my time away in the sun before I return, hangdog, to work in January.

Financial considerations meant that I didn’t get to see any films in December; so, if there are any generous multi-millionaires, or managers of major film distributors or cinemaplex’s out there reading this, you can find my contact information on the front page, drop me a line...right?

2004?

Who knows what the future holds for film? For me, it holds a visit to see Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai, a vain effort to get to see Return of the King after a couple of abortive attempts over the past week, and Kill Bill, Vol 2 in February, as well as whatever crazy films the lucky forum goers who get to boss me around pick out for me every month.