my top ten films of 2004
some people are making top ten lists, and they haven't even seen most of the good movies of the year. so i'm making mine, because the only other movies from 2004 that i want to see and haven't gotten a chance to yet are WKW's 2046 and Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers.
1. Old Boy - Park Chan Wook
2. Last Life in the Universe - Pen-ek Ratanaruang
3. Head On - Fatih Akin
4. A Very Long Engagement - Jean-Pierre Jeunet
5. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - Wes Anderson
6. Zatoichi - Kitano Takeshi
7. The Return - Andrei Zvyaginstev
8. The Saddest Music in the World - Guy Maddin
9. Ghost in the Shell II: Innocence - Mamoru Oshii
10. Before Sunset - Richard Linklater
Biggest Letdowns (movies I thought I would love and ended up hating or at least disdaining):
Eternal Sunshine: sub-par performances from Carey and Winslet, Kauffman's pretentious screenwriting marred a film that Gondry otherwise could have pulled off beautifully. Though, everyone else in the world loved it.
Kill Bill, Vol. 2: where was the ode to the West? three or four desert landscape shots? what kind of final battle was that? what happened to your soundtrack brilliance? roger ebert praised it -that's a fucking kiss of death.
Garden State: fuck you zach braff you talentless bitch. stick to sitcom acting; you're not a writer-director - you wouldn't know an intriguing story if it bit you in the ass, and using slow-mo doesn't make a scene dramatic or exciting. what a shit boring expectable ending. what a fucking abuse of the shins.