A Year at the Movies - 2004 Movie Year in Review
Last year, I saw 70 movies, plus 9 at the SciFi Marathon. Just like last year's review, I will be concentrating on 2004 releases or films that made their Cleveland debut in 2004. Re-releases or other classic movies I saw will probably not be thrown into consideration.
Overall, I do not think that 2004 was a really phenomenal year for movies. While there were many very good movies, there was only one or two that I think were great or even near great. This perception may be partially because I was gone for the last two weeks of the year, which is typically when I see a lot of the Oscar-bait films, which tend to be a bit better. Or maybe I just missed all the really great ones. On that note, here are the
Movies Nathan Wishes He Had Seen But Did Not
1. Friday Night Lights - I highly recommend the book.
2. Jersey Girl - I refuse to believe that Kevin Smith can make a bad movie.
3. The Punisher - based on the Garth Ennis comics.
4. Hidalgo - looked like fun.
5. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story - yeah!
6. The Passion of the Christ - Admittedly, the subject matter was not particularly interesting to me, but it would be nice to be able to give an educated answer to "was this film anti-semitic?" I doubt that it was, but then, I did not see it. The second most culturally important movie of the year, behind only Fahrenheit 9/11.
Ray would be on this list, but I think I probably will see it at some point in the near future with the Oscar buzz hitting it.
Moving on, one genre that was particularly strong this year: documentarys.
Best Documenataries
1. Control Room
2. Fog of War: 11 Lessons From the Life of Robert McNamara
3. End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones
4. Super Size Me
5. Fahrenheit 9/11
6. Broadway: The Golden Age
7. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
8. Touching the Void
Suprised? Control Room, a day in the life Al Jazeera television network, was much more informative and potentially *useful* to the average American than Fahrenheit 9/11. It did a great job illuminating the Arab point of view on a number of issues, namely Iraq & Israel. Fog of War was a very good look at practical politics and how the lessons of Vietnam relate to today. Fahrenheit 9/11 drops all the way to 5th because it was clear that Michael Moorer was grandstanding and was blatantly leaving out things that contradicted his point. If he had faced them straight on it would have been better. Thank god for the Ramones clearing things up for us.
Do not mistake me though - to be an educated, culturally aware American in 2004 you needed to see Fahrenheit 9/11, regardless of whether you agreed with it. No other other movie in recent history has forced itself into the political consciousness or even tried.
On a lighter note here are
Best Guilty Pleasure Movies - Explosions, Girls in Tight Clothes and Mindless Violence
1. I, Robot
2. Blade: Trinity
3. Alien Versus Predator
4. Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow
5. Van Helsing
6. Hellboy
Blade Trinity shoots to the top because of my fond memories of the first two films. Pity AvP sucked so badly, but it was still good fun. Sky Captain really wanted to be a good movie, but failed miserably. I, Robot almost escaped this category to the serious movie category, and if there had been more Asimov and less stupid violence it probably would have done it.
Of course, there is always animation, which can have serious and stupid in one breath.
Best Animated Films 2004
1. The Incredibles
2. The Triplets of Belleville
3. Tokyo Godfathers
4. Shrek 2
5. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
6. Kaena: The Propehcy
This list should be pretty much self explanatory. A lot of you probably missed The Triplets of Belleville, and I urge you to rent it. No need to bother with 5 & 6, both were pretty much horrid. In fact, I only included them so I could point out that they were horrible.
Best Movie Musicals
1. De-Lovely
2. Team America: World Police
Actually, that was pretty close to a tie. Neither was as good a musical as South Parth: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, though. Yes, even Cole Porter fails compared to Brian Boitano.
Best Movies 99% of Americans Never Heard Of or Saw
1. Primer
2. Incident at Loch Ness
3. The Tracker
4. Bubba-Ho-Tep
5. Elephant
6. Rachida
7. Facing Windows
Watch Primer. You will like it. Really.
Best Movies 99% of Americans Heard Of But Never Saw
1. City of God
2. Before Sunset
3. Saved!
4. Napolean Dynamite
5. Maria Full of Grace
6. The Station Agent
I saw Before Sunrise and Before Sunset back to back at the Cinematheque. It was the single best day I spent at the movie theater all year. Before Sunset has only perfect ending I saw this year, where you watched the movie and said "Yes, this is how it must end." All of these are worth your time.
And could someone explain how Saved! closed in less than a week? It was hilarious. City of God at least got some play after picking up Oscar nominations. That was an absolutely brilliant movie.
Anniversarys, Extra Footage and Other Reissues
1. Scarface
2. The Battle of Algiers
3. Life of Brian
4. Godzilla ( 50th Anniversary Uncut/Undubbed )
Had to get Scarface on there somehow...
Best Popular ( Or At Least Wide Release ) Movies
1. The Incredibles
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Kill Bill, v.2
4. Garden State
5. Hero
6. Miracle
7. Spiderman 2
8. Shrek 2
9. The Bourne Supremacy
10. Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
11. Collateral
Collateral barely makes it on, if it were not for the horribly stupid bad ending it would be higher, maybe much higher. Miracle probably should not be that high, but I grew up in North Dakota, where Neal Broten is still a minor deity. USA! USA!
Remember, top ten lists by their very nature are evil. They lock movies into slots and you start to think those slots mean things. Roger Ebert even wrote that if he were not required by his editors he would probably not even bother. This is just for fun, and to give sort of an overview of my movie year and what I liked and did not like.
Nathan's Favorite Movies, 2004
1. City of God
2. The Incredibles
3. Garden State
4. Kill Bill, v.2
5. De-Lovely
6. Before Sunset
7. Primer
8. Miracle
9. Super Size Me
10. Shrek 2
So this list immediately causes all sorts of questions. If I thought Super Size was only the #4 documentary, how come it is on this list and the top 3 are not? Easy - I enjoyed watching it and would enjoy watching it again. That does not mean it was a better movie, just better for me. On the other hand, I have no real desire to watch Primer again, but it was so excellent that it must be recognized, so here it is.
Movies You Probably Did Not See and Should, 2004
1. City of God - Arguably the best foreign language film I have ever seen. Actually, arguably the best film, period, I have ever seen.
2. Primer - The best indenpendent and the best science fiction film of the year, wrapped up in one package. If there was justice in this world, geeks everywhere would be referring to this in everyday conversation.
3. De-Lovely - It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely! At least buy the soundtrack, which carried this film.
4. Incident at Loch Ness - Spinal Tap + The Real World + Werner Herzog + a deserted Scottish loch...
5. The Triplets of Belleville - Political commentary, catchy songs, physical humor, the French. And all animated!
6. Bubba-Ho-Tep - "Jack, I don't mean to be rude but JFK was a white man." "They dyed me!"
7. Tokyo Godfathers - The finest piece of anime to come out last year. Kicks the shite out of Ghost in the Shell 2, that's for damn sure.
8. Control Room - Much more relevant than Fahrenheit 9/11, if not as funny.
Let the arguments begin. Well, there would be arguments, if anyone read this :-)
Overall, I do not think that 2004 was a really phenomenal year for movies. While there were many very good movies, there was only one or two that I think were great or even near great. This perception may be partially because I was gone for the last two weeks of the year, which is typically when I see a lot of the Oscar-bait films, which tend to be a bit better. Or maybe I just missed all the really great ones. On that note, here are the
Movies Nathan Wishes He Had Seen But Did Not
1. Friday Night Lights - I highly recommend the book.
2. Jersey Girl - I refuse to believe that Kevin Smith can make a bad movie.
3. The Punisher - based on the Garth Ennis comics.
4. Hidalgo - looked like fun.
5. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story - yeah!
6. The Passion of the Christ - Admittedly, the subject matter was not particularly interesting to me, but it would be nice to be able to give an educated answer to "was this film anti-semitic?" I doubt that it was, but then, I did not see it. The second most culturally important movie of the year, behind only Fahrenheit 9/11.
Ray would be on this list, but I think I probably will see it at some point in the near future with the Oscar buzz hitting it.
Moving on, one genre that was particularly strong this year: documentarys.
Best Documenataries
1. Control Room
2. Fog of War: 11 Lessons From the Life of Robert McNamara
3. End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones
4. Super Size Me
5. Fahrenheit 9/11
6. Broadway: The Golden Age
7. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
8. Touching the Void
Suprised? Control Room, a day in the life Al Jazeera television network, was much more informative and potentially *useful* to the average American than Fahrenheit 9/11. It did a great job illuminating the Arab point of view on a number of issues, namely Iraq & Israel. Fog of War was a very good look at practical politics and how the lessons of Vietnam relate to today. Fahrenheit 9/11 drops all the way to 5th because it was clear that Michael Moorer was grandstanding and was blatantly leaving out things that contradicted his point. If he had faced them straight on it would have been better. Thank god for the Ramones clearing things up for us.
Do not mistake me though - to be an educated, culturally aware American in 2004 you needed to see Fahrenheit 9/11, regardless of whether you agreed with it. No other other movie in recent history has forced itself into the political consciousness or even tried.
On a lighter note here are
Best Guilty Pleasure Movies - Explosions, Girls in Tight Clothes and Mindless Violence
1. I, Robot
2. Blade: Trinity
3. Alien Versus Predator
4. Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow
5. Van Helsing
6. Hellboy
Blade Trinity shoots to the top because of my fond memories of the first two films. Pity AvP sucked so badly, but it was still good fun. Sky Captain really wanted to be a good movie, but failed miserably. I, Robot almost escaped this category to the serious movie category, and if there had been more Asimov and less stupid violence it probably would have done it.
Of course, there is always animation, which can have serious and stupid in one breath.
Best Animated Films 2004
1. The Incredibles
2. The Triplets of Belleville
3. Tokyo Godfathers
4. Shrek 2
5. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
6. Kaena: The Propehcy
This list should be pretty much self explanatory. A lot of you probably missed The Triplets of Belleville, and I urge you to rent it. No need to bother with 5 & 6, both were pretty much horrid. In fact, I only included them so I could point out that they were horrible.
Best Movie Musicals
1. De-Lovely
2. Team America: World Police
Actually, that was pretty close to a tie. Neither was as good a musical as South Parth: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, though. Yes, even Cole Porter fails compared to Brian Boitano.
Best Movies 99% of Americans Never Heard Of or Saw
1. Primer
2. Incident at Loch Ness
3. The Tracker
4. Bubba-Ho-Tep
5. Elephant
6. Rachida
7. Facing Windows
Watch Primer. You will like it. Really.
Best Movies 99% of Americans Heard Of But Never Saw
1. City of God
2. Before Sunset
3. Saved!
4. Napolean Dynamite
5. Maria Full of Grace
6. The Station Agent
I saw Before Sunrise and Before Sunset back to back at the Cinematheque. It was the single best day I spent at the movie theater all year. Before Sunset has only perfect ending I saw this year, where you watched the movie and said "Yes, this is how it must end." All of these are worth your time.
And could someone explain how Saved! closed in less than a week? It was hilarious. City of God at least got some play after picking up Oscar nominations. That was an absolutely brilliant movie.
Anniversarys, Extra Footage and Other Reissues
1. Scarface
2. The Battle of Algiers
3. Life of Brian
4. Godzilla ( 50th Anniversary Uncut/Undubbed )
Had to get Scarface on there somehow...
Best Popular ( Or At Least Wide Release ) Movies
1. The Incredibles
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Kill Bill, v.2
4. Garden State
5. Hero
6. Miracle
7. Spiderman 2
8. Shrek 2
9. The Bourne Supremacy
10. Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
11. Collateral
Collateral barely makes it on, if it were not for the horribly stupid bad ending it would be higher, maybe much higher. Miracle probably should not be that high, but I grew up in North Dakota, where Neal Broten is still a minor deity. USA! USA!
Remember, top ten lists by their very nature are evil. They lock movies into slots and you start to think those slots mean things. Roger Ebert even wrote that if he were not required by his editors he would probably not even bother. This is just for fun, and to give sort of an overview of my movie year and what I liked and did not like.
Nathan's Favorite Movies, 2004
1. City of God
2. The Incredibles
3. Garden State
4. Kill Bill, v.2
5. De-Lovely
6. Before Sunset
7. Primer
8. Miracle
9. Super Size Me
10. Shrek 2
So this list immediately causes all sorts of questions. If I thought Super Size was only the #4 documentary, how come it is on this list and the top 3 are not? Easy - I enjoyed watching it and would enjoy watching it again. That does not mean it was a better movie, just better for me. On the other hand, I have no real desire to watch Primer again, but it was so excellent that it must be recognized, so here it is.
Movies You Probably Did Not See and Should, 2004
1. City of God - Arguably the best foreign language film I have ever seen. Actually, arguably the best film, period, I have ever seen.
2. Primer - The best indenpendent and the best science fiction film of the year, wrapped up in one package. If there was justice in this world, geeks everywhere would be referring to this in everyday conversation.
3. De-Lovely - It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely! At least buy the soundtrack, which carried this film.
4. Incident at Loch Ness - Spinal Tap + The Real World + Werner Herzog + a deserted Scottish loch...
5. The Triplets of Belleville - Political commentary, catchy songs, physical humor, the French. And all animated!
6. Bubba-Ho-Tep - "Jack, I don't mean to be rude but JFK was a white man." "They dyed me!"
7. Tokyo Godfathers - The finest piece of anime to come out last year. Kicks the shite out of Ghost in the Shell 2, that's for damn sure.
8. Control Room - Much more relevant than Fahrenheit 9/11, if not as funny.
Let the arguments begin. Well, there would be arguments, if anyone read this :-)