The Films of 2004

[devi]

When 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...


Russian Ark
Whale Rider
The Battleship Potemkin
Sunrise
Miss Congeniality
Serendipity
Love Actually
Mississippi Burning
Saw
Coffee & Cigarettes
Hellboy
Hulk
Spidermans 1 and 2
Shrek 2
Wonder Boys
My Neighbour Totoro
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Cube
Cypher
Hero
The Saddest Music in the World
Big Fish
Elephant
Fahrenheit 9/11
Super Size Me
Collateral
Harry Potter 3
The Dreamers (almost sure that was this year...)
Time of the Wolf
No Man's Land
Bad Education
The Day After Tomorrow
Lilya 4-Ever
Morvern Callar
Touch of Evil
Brief Encounter
A Knight's Tale
Mystery Men
Enduring Love
Fargo
Rules of Attraction
Master and Commander
Roger Dodger
The Searchers
The Stepford Wives (the old version)
Profondo Rosso
Kiki's Delivery Service
Dirty Pretty Things
Go
Brazil
Intolerable Cruelty (again, hmm, was that this year?)
Princess Mononoke
Human Nature
Bad Santa
American Splendor
Lost In Translation
Kill Bill 2
Before Sunset
Zatoichi
Shaun of the Dead
The Village
School of Rock
The Matrix: Revolutions
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Far From Heaven
Equilibrium
Secretary
Bend It Like Beckham
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Spellbound (the spelling bee one, not the Hitchcock one)
Finding Nemo
Van Helsing
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Pleasantville
Election
Chicago
Funny Games (sort of, while doing something else, and I gave up before the end - this may amuse anyone who's seen it)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
I Heart Huckabees
The Station Agent
Garden State
Napoleon Dynamite
A Mighty Wind
Dude, Where's My Car?


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.

Comments

[caescarna.livejournal.com]

In no particular order:

"Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind."
I loved this, a very deep and involving, wrenching storyline, quite the polar opposite of "Fifty First Dates."

"Van Helsing."
Good for the sprinkling of qute jumpy moments, Dracula's portrayal was good & rounded but the plot around his motivation a little far-fetched.

"Harry Potter 3."
The first half of the film had very much an 80's English television feel about it - very grainy. Radcliffe shows promise in his development of the character of Potter, however the missing chunk of backstory regarding the "Animagus" section left me with confusing loose ends that I couldn't tie up not having read the book.

"Hellboy."
Lots of fun, I hope there's a sequel.

"Christie Malry's Own Double Entry."
Pure and utter rubbish. Redeemed only in part by arch-egomaniac Luke Haines' soundtrack.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Weird - there was a debate about Christie Malry in my list of last year as well! I liked it a lot, even considering the cringey Renaissance flashbacks - though the soundtrack did contribute a lot to my enjoyment of it.

Harry Potter 3 was pretty good, but like you, I came out lamenting to all who would listen, "What happened to Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs?" If you don't know they were all childhood friends, the stag bit makes NO SENSE!

And Van Helsing was way too cheesy for my tastes. I like quirky cheese, not horror cheese, evidently :)