2003 Best Reviewed Movies (Page #10)

This musical set at a summer camp for young singers, dancers, actors and musicians tells the story of Bert Hanley, a former Broadway songwriter who has to work at the camp because his career has burnt out after a series of flops. Inspired by the kids at the camp, however, Bert sees his chance to find success again by recruiting them to put together a new production. The long summer days at Camp Ovation are ripe with life lessons, fast friendships, jealousies and antics, along with the shocking discovery that there is an honest-to-goodness straight boy in the bunch.

A blind girl gets a cornea transplant so that she would be able to see again. However, she got more than what she bargained for when she realised she could even see ghosts. And some of these ghosts are down right unfriendly. So she embarks on a journey to find the origins of her cornea and to reveal the history of the previous dead owner.

The film follows the story of a respected upper middle class family whose high social stature is burst following a murder. Chabrol reexamines the individual family members' lives in the time period leading up to the crime unveiling their secrets and probing their character.

In this adaptation of the long-running Marvel comic "The Incredible Hulk," research scientist Dr. Bruce Banner's (Eric Bana) failed experiments cause him to mutate into a monstrously powerful and savage green-skinned behemoth whenever he loses control of his emotions. Jennifer Connelly plays his love interest Betty Ross, Nick Nolte plays Bruce's dangerous father, and Sam Elliott plays Betty's father, the tough-as-nails General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross.

Caught in a savage rainstorm, ten travelers are forced to seek refuge at a strange desert motel. They soon realize they've found anything but shelter. There is a killer among them and, one by one, they are murdered. As the storm rages on and the dead begin to outnumber the living, one thing becomes clear: Each of them was drawn to the motel, not by accident or circumstance, but by forces beyond imagination, forces that promise anyone who survives a mind-bending and terrifying destiny.

Frances Mayes (Diane Lane) is a 35-year-old San Francisco writer whose perfect life has just taken an unexpected detour. Her recent divorce has left her with terminal writer's block and extremely depressed, and her best friend, Patti (Sandra Oh), is beginning to think she might never recover. "Dr. Patti's" Rx: 10 days in Tuscany. And it's there that, on a whim, Frances purchases a villa named Bramasole - literally, "something that yearns for the sun." The home needs much restoration, but what better place for a new beginning than the home of the Renaissance? As she flings herself into her new life at the villa in the lush and beautiful Italian countryside, Frances makes new friends among her neighbors, but in the quiet moments, she is fearful that her ambitions for her new life - and a new family - may not be realized... until a chance encounter in Rome throws Frances into the arms of an intriguing Protobello antiquities dealer named Marcello (Raoul Bova). Can this be what she dreamed of? Can love last with Marcello? Will her new life flower under the Tuscan sun?

College is finally over and five friends escape to a remote log cabin in the woods to enjoy some last days of decadence before entering the working world. Merriment and good times sour when a delirious stranger covered in bloody sores crashes their party. Shots are fired and the lunatic flees into the woods, but it's too late for our five friends: contact was already made. Soon one member of the circle gets ill and her skin starts to bubble and burn as a trail of oozing sores ravages her flesh. The group's compassion quickly turns to repulsion and terror as their friend deteriorates before their eyes.

This is the story of three guys in their early 30's, Mitch (Luke Wilson), Frank (Will Ferrell), and Beanie (Vince Vaughn), who try to relive their old college glory days by moving into a large house near their old campus. They inadvertently form an "unofficial fraternity", where students can enjoy all the riches of the partying lifestyle without the commitment that comes with having to abide by the university's fraternity rules. Soon, however, the realities of their past lives catches up with their wild college lifestyles.

"Secondhand Lions" follows the comedic adventures of an introverted 14 year-old boy (Haley Joel Osment) who reluctantly finds himself spending the summer with a pair of cranky, eccentric great-uncles (Michael Caine and Robert Duvall). At first appalled by their gruff uncaring manner, over time he becomes enthralled with his uncles as the exotic tales and remembrances of their own youthful exploits introduce the boy to a world of imagination and wonder and re-ignites the old men's spirits.

This documentary examines the careers of the 1950s-1970s Stax Records and Motown soul and R&B singers who "kept on keeping on" right through (and after) the disco scene into today, through the use of interviews with and performance footage by such Motown luminaries as Isaac Hayes, the Chi-Lites, Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave), Mary Wilson (of the Supremes) and others. The focus of the film is how these performers managed to keep thriving through the 30 years of change in the music industry since the heydays of classic R&B.

Legendary criminal. Proud homosexual. Cabaret star. Passionate lover. Killer. Devoted father of seven adopted children. Saint or devil? Madame Satã. Born to slaves in the arid wasteland of Northern Brazil and sold by his mother at the age of 7, he pursued his freedom on the mean streets of Lapa, Rio de Janeiro. Jet-black, six feet tall, 180 pounds of proud muscle in a silk shirt and tight pants, a cutthroat razor in his back pocket. Karim Aïnouz's extraordinary portrait of the triumphs and tragedy of this explosive and paradoxical personality unfolds against the vibrant, sordid background of Lapa: thronging underworld of pimps and whores, of cut-throats, queers and artists, of dark bars and brothels thick with smoke, drenched in sweat and cheap perfume. A world run through with violence and raw desire, where desperate dreams spring from poverty and squalor.