![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Films of 2004
Dec. 20th, 2004 01:20 pmWhen I did this last year, I thought I'd watched a lot of films in 2003. All I can say to that is, Hah!
I seem to have spent a goodly chunk of 2004 sitting in a multicoloured photon storm, and most of it was very enjoyable indeed. So here's everything I saw for the first time, at the cinema or on the small screen. It's as much a record for me as for anyone else - I'd like to know in future where all that time went...
( The whole list, in no particular order )
And now my attempt to make some sort of sense of that huge pile:
Favourites of the year: My Neighbour Totoro was an absolutely gorgeous evocation of the joys and terrors of being a kid. It made me cry. Eternal Sunshine did that too, but for very different reasons, and was funny, romantic and ingenious too. No Man's Land was riveting and tragic, with pitch-black moments of humour, and the ending is horrible, but any other ending would have been a lie. The Saddest Music in the World was deeply weird and gets into this list purely on the strength of Isabella Rossellini with hollow glass legs full of beer. Dirty Pretty Things involved me so much with the characters that I was cheering aloud at the amazing kidney switcheroo. I laughed like a drain at I Heart Huckabees, but was also convinced to read more philosophy. And Lost In Translation was just plain beautiful. Garden State, besides being stuffed with true things and shot in a way that managed to make things as mundane as hospital waiting-room chairs look interesting, had an infinite abyss in New Jersey discovered during the building of a mall, which if you know me at all should explain everything.
Honourable mentions: Big Fish, Whale Rider, Collateral, School of Rock, Zatoichi, Brazil, Sunrise. And I really wish I'd seen Chicago on the big screen.
Turkeys of the year: In order to get into this category, the film actually has to have annoyed me, not just been a bit meh. There was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (let's all slap Alan Moore in the face, why don't we?*). Matrix Revolutions (I really should have learned from last year. This one was even worse). But the cyanide-filled wooden spoon has to go to Love Actually. It made me furious for all sorts of reasons. Hey, it probably deserves a post all its own. Since it's being advertised on the tube at the moment, it might even be relevant. I must vent my anger!
Funniest moments: Wheezy Joe's demise in Intolerable Cruelty. The aforementioned legs full of beer. The bit with the bee sting in Election (it shouldn't have been funny but it was). The proof that North London is full of zombies even when there isn't a zombie virus going around in Shaun of the Dead - it's true, you know. Can't decide between the talking cat and the rave getting high on aspirin in Go. Finding it hard to pick an individual funny Huckabees moment - the space hoppers were great, but I was expecting them, so it was more an hour and a half of steady chuckling. Oh yes, and the bargaining scene in Bad Santa.
Most romantic moments: Secretary, where she refuses to leave his desk until he comes for her - awwww, so sweeet. Eternal Sunshine - the scene in the disintegrating house makes me choke up just thinking about it. Before Sunset - the whole damn thing. The karaoke box in Lost In Translation (which is also responsible for my taking up karaoke myself).
My favourite movie people of the year: Hayao Miyazaki and Charlie Kaufman.
Best of the many superhero films by a long way: Hellboy.
Anyone like to make their own nominations?
*I phrased this all wrong. I don't recommend beating up Alan Moore at all, I meant the film's very existence was a slap in the face... I'll get my coat.
I seem to have spent a goodly chunk of 2004 sitting in a multicoloured photon storm, and most of it was very enjoyable indeed. So here's everything I saw for the first time, at the cinema or on the small screen. It's as much a record for me as for anyone else - I'd like to know in future where all that time went...
( The whole list, in no particular order )
And now my attempt to make some sort of sense of that huge pile:
Favourites of the year: My Neighbour Totoro was an absolutely gorgeous evocation of the joys and terrors of being a kid. It made me cry. Eternal Sunshine did that too, but for very different reasons, and was funny, romantic and ingenious too. No Man's Land was riveting and tragic, with pitch-black moments of humour, and the ending is horrible, but any other ending would have been a lie. The Saddest Music in the World was deeply weird and gets into this list purely on the strength of Isabella Rossellini with hollow glass legs full of beer. Dirty Pretty Things involved me so much with the characters that I was cheering aloud at the amazing kidney switcheroo. I laughed like a drain at I Heart Huckabees, but was also convinced to read more philosophy. And Lost In Translation was just plain beautiful. Garden State, besides being stuffed with true things and shot in a way that managed to make things as mundane as hospital waiting-room chairs look interesting, had an infinite abyss in New Jersey discovered during the building of a mall, which if you know me at all should explain everything.
Honourable mentions: Big Fish, Whale Rider, Collateral, School of Rock, Zatoichi, Brazil, Sunrise. And I really wish I'd seen Chicago on the big screen.
Turkeys of the year: In order to get into this category, the film actually has to have annoyed me, not just been a bit meh. There was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (let's all slap Alan Moore in the face, why don't we?*). Matrix Revolutions (I really should have learned from last year. This one was even worse). But the cyanide-filled wooden spoon has to go to Love Actually. It made me furious for all sorts of reasons. Hey, it probably deserves a post all its own. Since it's being advertised on the tube at the moment, it might even be relevant. I must vent my anger!
Funniest moments: Wheezy Joe's demise in Intolerable Cruelty. The aforementioned legs full of beer. The bit with the bee sting in Election (it shouldn't have been funny but it was). The proof that North London is full of zombies even when there isn't a zombie virus going around in Shaun of the Dead - it's true, you know. Can't decide between the talking cat and the rave getting high on aspirin in Go. Finding it hard to pick an individual funny Huckabees moment - the space hoppers were great, but I was expecting them, so it was more an hour and a half of steady chuckling. Oh yes, and the bargaining scene in Bad Santa.
Most romantic moments: Secretary, where she refuses to leave his desk until he comes for her - awwww, so sweeet. Eternal Sunshine - the scene in the disintegrating house makes me choke up just thinking about it. Before Sunset - the whole damn thing. The karaoke box in Lost In Translation (which is also responsible for my taking up karaoke myself).
My favourite movie people of the year: Hayao Miyazaki and Charlie Kaufman.
Best of the many superhero films by a long way: Hellboy.
Anyone like to make their own nominations?
*I phrased this all wrong. I don't recommend beating up Alan Moore at all, I meant the film's very existence was a slap in the face... I'll get my coat.
