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Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004, Adam McKay, USA): 56
From the (semi) opening salvo of Christina Applegate doing her best Veronica Lake, posing around poolside (waiting to be discovered?), Anchorman is a smartly written film - This is a surprise after watching too many other post SNL-Lorne Michaels productions - Not a great film by any means, but a consistantly funny farce from beginning to end - and when the film is over...don't leave with the other sheep, hang around and watch the credits...you'll see one final "in" joke
The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004, Niels Mueller, USA): 54
This film was pretty much completely overlooked by the year-end awards melange that overtakes the industry every Christmas and New Year, which is somewaht surprising, considering it stars the reigning Best Actor Oscar Winner, Mr. Sean Penn (at least reigning at the time of release, sorry Mr. Foxx) - But I suppose it shouldn't be that much of a surprise - With the exception of some minor mood enhancements, Penn's performance is the only thing that manages to keep this film above the sinking point...but what a great performance it is - Enough so to spew it out of the wallows it may have sunken into without Sean Penn
Baadasssss! (2003, Mario Van Peebles, USA): 41
Showing the origins of the Blaxploitation Film Movement of the seventies, Van Peebles gives a style that, I am asuming, is meant to pay homage to his father (who he also plays in the film) and his seminal Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song! - Not a bad film, better than the typical Bio-Pic, but it still manages to just lay there limp and cold, when it should be on fire
The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003, Takeshi Kitano, Japan): 54
With flashes of digitally created blood, Kitano has created what looks and sounds like a bunch of bells and whistles, but ends up being a sometimes daring archetype tale of the legendary Samurai - A strong and powerful performance from the Director/Actor Kitano, Zatoichi is a bold modernization of Kurosawa, full of quick-witted metal-clanging sword bursts and gushes of crimson blood splattering up and down the screen - More literal than Kitano's usually more esoteric films (Sonatine, Fireworks, Kikujiro) and more in the realm of recent Zhang Yimou fare, but with darker overtones than Zhang is capable of - Simply put, an ultra-modern telling of an Orphic tale of ancient lucidity
Bon Voyage (2003, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, France): 32
A remarkably inane attempt at bringing a touch of comedy to the invasion of Paris by the Nazi's in WWII - Maybe Isabel Adjani is purposely acting the fool, but even so, this film is like a Hollywood farce without the Hollywood part and without the wit that needs to come with a successful farce - Not the worst film I've ever seen, but the most idiotically pathetic attempt at satire I've come across in years (nearly as horrific as that hideous Michael Douglas/Melanie Griffith vehicle, Shining Through, from a decade ago - it too was an attempt at a WWII love story-cum-espionage flick) - This film plays out as if it were a sit-com (a very bad sit-com) - The only thing that holds it from falling apart completely is the hope that it has to get better than this at some point (it does have a usually-talented cast after all) - But it never does
The Bourne Supremacy (2004, Paul Greengrass, USA): 43
Not near as suspenseful or action-packed as the first but still not a bad film - We don't get the will-he-get-caught cliffhanger scenes that the fisrt Bourne film had - Director Greengrass, who made the grainy docu-style Bloody Sunday, doesn't work as well here as Doug Limon did in the first - The genre is wrong for him maybe - A sometimes fun / sometimes dragging, Hollywood standard sequel, that cannot live up to its predecessor's good name
Bright Young Things (2003, Stephen Fry, UK): 43
The opening credits of Bright Young Things, full of swirling reds and drunken hedonistic rapture, all wrapped up in a Dante's Inferno-esque erotic devilish costume, gives great promise to Stephen Fry's directorial debut - unfortunately for us, and for Fry, Bright Young Things quickly rearranges itself into a tiresome old thing.
Well acted (beautiful Emily Mortimer is divinely laconic and Peter O'Toole gives one of the best cameos of the year) and with a few all-too-brief moments of emotional lucidity (Michael Sheen's tearful exit) and/or wicked humour (Jim Broadbent is a riot), Bright Young Things (the working title of Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies, from which this is adapted) plays out much more like Noel Coward for Dummies - or more appropriately for Mr. Fry, Oscar Wilde for Dummies. Fry, who seems to have made a career out of playing Oscar Wilde, has the witicisms of Wilde (as well as Coward and Waugh) but seems to lack the actual wit throught most of this overwought film.
Pleasent enough (and fun), but then again, I am guessing that pleasentries probably were not Waugh's original intent. Bright Young Things ends up being just another cog on the rather shallowesque gears of modern English Cinema.
Bush's Brain (2004, Joseph Mealey & Michael Shoob, USA): 31
Dragging at first, it eventually picks up to speed, and we get to peek into the life (somewhat) of Karl Rove, Right-Wing Pit Bull Extraordinaire (and Mastermind behind the inexplicable electing of George W. Bush) - We don't see any of the Gonzo Journalistic flair that Michael Moore (for right or wrong) brings to his films, but we do see the brain that got Bush elected and we see how that brain works, with all its back-stabbing dirty-politicking ways - Watching this on Election Eve (and hopefully on Bush's last hurrah) brought an added urgency to the story, even though we get no great "Watergate" explosions - I will tell you this though: If I ever run for office, I would want a guy like Rove on my side (or, more to my leanings, James Carville)
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004, David Twohy, USA): 41
I'm not sure why, but Vin Diesel has some sort of silly charm to him and, although he is not a good actor by any stretch of any imagination (kind of equivelent to a Professional Wrestler going into acting), he does have a way with the one-liner quips - Add that together with some spectacular fight choreography and an otherworldliness to its design and you have a film that's not half bad - but it's not half good either, falling flat when Diesel is not on the screen and you no longer have his trailer park James Bond witicisms to get a smirk out of
Coffee & Cigarettes (2004, Jim Jarmusch, USA): 67
Droll and delicious is probably the best way to describe Jarmusch's latest effort - A collection of inter-evolutionary vignettes featuring everything from Steven Wright and a half crazed caffeine high Roberto Begnini meeting in a cafe to Cate Blanchett playing both herself and a jealous cousin to Steve Coogan playing jaded pretentious star to Alfred Molina's heartfelt gestures to Bill Murray playing himself as a coffee swigging hipster who likes to hang out working in the kitchens of dive coffee houses - Never an overly eager Jarmusch fan, more aptly a wishful thinker of that great film yet to come (Dead Man, Night on Earth and Stranger Than Paradise were all good films, but more doofus-hipster than American-auteur) - Jarmusch in the right mode can be quite funny and quirky, but usually only in a semi-demented fluffy kind of way
Control Room (2004, Jehane Noujaim, USA): 41
Less sensationalistic as Fahrenheit 9/11 but probably more real, in the sense of human terms, still the issues are shown in such a drab way that the film tends to drag, when instead it should be of interest - These are important topics that need to be said and this film should be seen for that fact alone and it is probably more important than Moore's latest opus, but, again, it just doesn't have the pull to drag us in very deep
Criminal (2004, Gregory Jacobs, USA): 44
The original Argentinian film, Nine Queens, that Criminal is the obligatory American remake of, didn't really impress me all that much the first time I saw it. Nor did it the second time (why did I see it a second time anyway?), but at least there was an energy in that film. Here it seems as if even the actors (all normally exciting) are bored out of their skulls - like all it is, is a paycheck, and nothing more.
Criminal is a story full of con men, so we automatically distrust every single character from the very start - so none of the plot twists or back-stabbing come as much of a shock (even if you've never seen the original). Although, when I saw Criminal at the Ritz in Philadelphia, after speed-walking eighteen blocks from the Roxy, where I had just seen the brilliant Brown Bunny and barely making my seat in time, there was one of those ever-so annoying patrons who felt it their obligation (maybe even civic duty) to loudly comment on each and every plot twist up on the screen, with exaltations such as "Wow!" and "Damn!!" and "Do you believe that?!".
That dufus aside, with a trickless screenplay and absolutely no energy whatsoever from the highly talented cast of John C. Reilly, Maggie Gyllanhal and Y Tu Mama Tambien's Diego Luna (soon to be a major star in the states), Criminal ends up being merely a tired remake of a film that wasn't all that good in the first place. Of course I may be being a bit hard on this film, possibly due in part to having just seen Vincent Gallo's long anticipated masterpiece mere moments before. Maybe anything I would have seen right after would invaribly pale in comparison. But it couldn't be just that - like I said before, even the actors looked bored as they went through their tired motions, all non-energetic duplicates of their originals.
Rent Nine Queens instead of watching this film - it may not be great, but at least you won't be bored.
Crimson Gold (2003, Jafar Panahi, Iran): 58
So many Critics put this film on their 2004 Top Ten Lists, but I just don't see that - A good film indeed, with a few moments of near brilliance, but still far from the Top Ten - Certainly not in the realm of what I am used to in Modern Iranian Cinema (ie. Kairostami, Makhmalbaf) - Still though, a quiet little film that can take hold at times, a film that aspires to greatness, but that only achieves two or three times during it's run (although the opening is one of the best of the year)
Danny Deckchair (2003, Jeff Balsmeyer, Australia): 53
Australia has a reputation for being quirky. They have the weirdest celebrities (Paul Hogan, Yahoo Serious), the weirdest music (Men at Work, Midnight Oil - have you ever seen them in interviews??) and they even have the weirdest animals - with their pouches and pockets and Platypuses. But this is a genuine quirkiness - never manufactured just for publicity's sake.
As for Australian Cinema - it too has a preternatural quirkiness to it. Films such as The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding may not be great cinema, but they have that genuine Australian quirkiness to help them along - even Mad Max and all its ilk is more than just a typical action series. In Australia, Cinema works in the same way that the Duck-Billed Platypus works. Who the hell knows why it exists, it just does - and that pretty much sums up Danny Deckchair.
The story is rather simple. A man becomes frustrated with the things in his life, especially his power-hungry girlfriend, and for a lark, decides to tie a gaggle of balloons to his chair and theoretically float away to a better place - and he does just that. Rhys Ifans, last seen as the only enjoyable performance in the otherwise mediocre Vanity Fair, is perfectly cast as Danny (of the deckchair fame) and Miranda Otto, appearing miles away from her Hobbit-loving warrior, is the woman whom Danny inevitably falls for (both figuratively and literally).
As I stated before, not great Cinema, but a genuine comedy nonetheless - and like that wonderful Platypus, a genuine part of Australia.
Dawn of the Dead (2004, Zack Snyder, USA): 62
Lacking the social satire that permeated the original George Romero camp classic, Snyder's remake has all the guts and glory that nearly makes this one of the best remakes ever made - nearly. Still somewhat of a let down, even with its wild frenetic energy, but surely not for lack of trying dammit.
De-Lovely (2004, Irwin Wrinkler, USA): 45
De-Lovely starts out by making absolutely no qualms about it being a Musical. We watch as Jonathan Pryce plays the interviewer/director of Cole Porter and his life, and we watch as an aging Cole Porter, played gaily to a tee by Kevin Kline, is made to sit and watch his past life play out in front of him like one of his own Broadway Musicals - all the while, the cues in his life are being directed off-stage by Pryce. It's sort of like a production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol with no Christmas - and with a bi-sexual egomaniacal musical genius as Scrooge. Unfortunately for us all, this is the final time anything even remotely original plays out upon the screen.
De-Lovely ends up being nothing more than a standard studio picture featuring a better than usual soundtrack. The music of Cole Porter permeates the film like it is his very own ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, all rolled in to one big production number - only occasionally interrupted by a vain attempt at a life story that seems to have just the requisite number of celebrations and tragedies. But hey, at least we get this great music, and we get to hear it performed by such acts as Elvis Costello, Natalie Cole, Robbie Williams, Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall, Alanis Morisette and even Porter himself in an archival closing credit bid.
Director Wrinkler (who made the dreadful Life is a House a few years back, also with Kline) is merely a studio hack without any real artistic flair to bring to any of his projects - and this is no exception. And although the music is (of course) to die for, and Kline's performance is one of his best, and even Ashley Judd isn't all that bad - De-Lovely still ends up as all show and no style. My reccomendation: skip the film (unless you are a huge Kevin Kline fan and cannot go another minute without seeing yet another fine performance in a long and under-appreciated career) and instead go out and buy the soundtrack.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004, Rawson Marshall Thurber, USA): 50
I went into this with less than stellar expectations, I can't stand Ben Stiller Movies (except for The Royal Tanenbaums) and I don't like stupid humour - What I got was a consistantly funny movie, stupid funny, but not demeaning or patronizing kind of stupid - Vince Vaughn was acerbic (yes, I used the term acerbic describing a Ben Stiller movie) and charming - Christine Taylor (I still can't get over how Ben stiller managed to land her - and get her to marry him) is both sexy and feral and, yes, I'll admit it, Ben Stiller was hilarious (you happy now ? You made me say it !) - Also some fun cameos from William Shatner, Lance Armstrong, Jason Bateman, Gary Cole, Chuck Norris and David Hasselhoff playing himself as the coach of the ever-worshipping German Dodgeball team
End of the Century: The Story of The Ramones (2003, Fields & Gramaglia, USA): 49
Most Documentaries about Musicians are nothing more than clips and soundbites and quickie interviews with bitter ex-band members - End of the Century is all that, but it also has some genuine seeming emotional weight to it - The Ramones were the seminal Punk band (forget The Sex Pistols, and The Clash came later) and hearing the nostalgic Tommy, the jaded and sardonic Dee Dee and the always bitter Johnny, is all well worth the admission price, even if it does start to run a little tedious after awhile - Plus the music ain't bad either
Enduring Love (2004, Roger Michell, UK): 55
Australian Rhys Ifans (Vanity Fair) has made a habit of giving brilliantly nuanced performances while inhabiting the skins of deranged and/or desperate characters - Unfortunately Mr. Ifans has also made a habit of portraying these memorable characters in less-than memorable films - Human Nature his best film to date, is merely a modestly ambled attempt by Michael Gondry and Charlie Kauffman - In Enduring Love, the story is no different - Ifans is sweatingly climactic, while the film itself suffers from having no direction and no apparent way of finding one - The film is like Fatal Attraction without any of the attraction part, just a bland fatality - Not a bad film by any means, just sadly confused in its demeanor - By the way, did you notice that this is Ifans second consecutive film where balloons play an intregal part in the plot ??
Exorcist: The Beginning (2004, Renny Harlin, USA): 33
The worst thing a horror movie can do is to not be scary - and that is exactly what this prequel installment of one of the scariest damn movies I've ever seen does - It's just not scary - A nice feel and look to it as far as the period stuff goes, but in the end just bland and not frightening at all
Father and Son (2003, Alexander Sokurov, Russia): 74
If Sokurov's Mother and Son was the Russian's lovesong to his mother country and her beautifully sad Matriarchal landscape (to the Earth that Dovzhenko spoke of), then Father and Son is his Patriarchal ode to the sense of duty to country that is so important in modern Russia (especially to a filmmaker who grew up during the Communist era) - Although, more flawed than his brilliant companionpiece (which was pretty much as close to perfect as you can get), Sokurov's newest film still has the solemn quietude that plays like poetry upon the screen
Fear and Trembling (2003, Alain Corneau, France): 53
A rather pedestrian seeming film if not for one major thing: the comic timing and emotional heft of the beautiful Sylvie Testud - Marvelous in 2000's Murderous Maids, here Ms. Testud is equally marvelous, although in a much fluffier way - The story of a Japanese-born Belgian woman who has now come back to her adopted homeland to find a new life - Hired as an interpreter in a Japanese firm, Miss Amelie (Testud) ends up being nothing more than a glorified gopher - Creating her own world to work in (memorizing all her fellow employees vital stats, taking it upon herself to daily change all her co-workers calenders), Miss Amelie angers her immediate boss and in doing so, creates a hostile workplace where she is readily reduced to tears - Testud, like her character, takes this film and makes it her own - My only complaint is this: why can't Sylvie Testud star in every film made?
The Five Obstructions (2003, Lars Von Trier & Jorgen Leth, Denmark): 64
Von Trier, who I consider one of the most inspiring Auteurs around, is also one of the biggest pricks - Taking his own mentor, legendary Danish Filmmaker Jorgen Leth, and daring him to remake his famed 1967 short, The Perfect Human, five times...the catch? He has to make them while adhering to strict orders from Von Trier - Only twelve frames per shot (that's half a second), film in the most miserable place on Earth et cetera - What Von Trier got, and what we get, is a highly enjoyable look at filmmaking from a completely fresh perspective - Entertaining in both the five finished products, as well as the conversations between Von Trier and Leth, both acting like bluffers in a high stakes poker game
The Forgotten (2004, Joseph Rubin, USA): 20
The Forgotten is (excuse the obviousness of this next comment) forgettable - Highly predictable and in no way does it make any sense from a storytelling point of view - A lazy half-hearted attempt at an X-Files-esque thriller - The wonderful Julianne Moore should know better than this - Rent Short Cuts or Safe or Far From Heaven instead
Garfield (2004, Peter Hewitt, USA): 4
Oh my God this was a bad movie (but then that was to be expected) - In my (insanely ridiculous) search for the worst film of 2004, I have stumbled across this...I can't even think of a good word for it, my brain has been fried by watching it - Only slightly better than Scooby-Doo 2 (that other annoyingly inane CGI animal flick of the year), I sat in horror as Bill Murray (yes! Bill 'Fucking' Murray - right off of his Oscar Nomination) yodels his way through a rendition of "A New Dog State of Mind", as the voice of Garfield - Why Garfield is a CGI creation while every other animal is real, I'm not sure (nor why Nermal, a little grey kitten in the comic strip, is now a full grown Siamese? - Affirmative Action??) - I suppose destroying old Saturday Morning Cartoons like Scooby-Doo, Fat Albert and The Flintsones wasn't enough for Hollywood...now they invade our daily comics page - What's next? The Wayans Brothers as Steve Roper & Mike Nomad? Jim Carrey as Funky Winkerbean? Danny Devito as The Wizard of Id??
The Grudge (2004, Takashi Shimisu, USA): 36
There were three girls sitting behind me in the theatre who never stopped talking all throughout the film - Normally that would annoy the fuck out of me, but here, they were more entertaining than the movie itself - Badly acted, badly written, badly made and, the worst thing for a horror movie, just not scary - I must admit though, that there was a lot of laughter in the theatre (unfortunately this wasn't supposed to be a comedy) - Only one brief moment of a glimmer of Hitchcockian thrill early on (an overhead shot of commuters crossing a busy Tokyo street - shadows criss-crossing) - Other than that, this film had nothing much to offer, but still fun in that pot-smoking 2am I'll-laugh-at-anything / Mystery Science Theater 3000 kind of way (is that an endorsement?) - I'll sum up my review by quoting another theatre patron's comment as the final credits (thankfully) rolled: "Well that sucked ass!" (but at least it was funny ass - even if it wasn't supposed to be)
A Home at the End of the World (2004, Michael Mayer, USA): 42
There was a point in this film, where I thought to myself, "finally, it's going to get good now." - Then the final credits began to roll - whaaaaaat!!? - The film, about sexuality and the confusing lines it crosses, ends up being just a staid little thing that really goes nowhere - Colin Farrell is good in the lead role, but he doesn't get much to do with it (his famed full frontal scene was edited out after British test audiences were stunned into silence - supposedly from the size of it?) - Not a bad little thing, but it never picks up any speed until it's too late to do anything with it
Home on the Range (2004, Will Finn & John Sanford, USA): 31
What would one expect from Disney, other than a tired, mundane half-assed attempt at being hip - even when the subject matter is far from it - With animation that appeared (in the trailer) to hark back to a simpler time in the world of cartoons, ends up just being a bland lifeless hunk of colours, all strapped onto the back of the ugly-voiced Rosanne (playing a cartoon cow in the best job of typecasting I've seen in a while) - Why, when there are animated films like The Triplets of Belleville and animators like Hayao Miyazaki (who is a noted inspiration for most Disney animators), does a studio insist on schlocking out these tepid staid things every year?
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003, Mike Hodges, UK): 30
Another tiresome British gangster flick - at least Sexy Beast and Gangster No. 1 had a visual style that (somewhat) made up for their lack of real substance, but this film can't even hang on to that tiny shred of hope - Even the great Clive Owen can't save this typically mediocre coming home story - Go see Closer instead, and get a taste of what Clive Owen is really all about
Infernal Affairs (2002, Andrew Lau, Hong Kong): 59
Full of a stylish neo-noir bruvado that is rarely seen in American films of the same genre - Michael Mann may come the closest - but all style and flash still can't completely make up for what is essentially a typical, albeit inventively convoluted, storyline - Although it does come close - Lau, who Produced, Directed, starred in and played Cinematographer, is charismatically devious as the cop in bed with the mob and Tony Leung, of Wong Kar-wei fame, is tragically... well, just tragically tragic as the undercover mole in the center of the mob - Lau and Leung play of their instincts beautifully as the yin and yang of the Hong Kong underworld - Moments of clear, sometimes diobolical beauty, along with a flashy, sparkling energy do make for a grand time at the cinema - Okay, maybe these things do make up for the story - in fact, maybe the story ends up making up for the story
In Good Company (2004, Paul Weitz, USA): 43
Funny, if not formulaic, little film - Topher Grace (easily the best thing to come out of That 70's Show) plays a 26 year old corporate whiz kid brought in by a big-money buy-out, to reorganize the new swallowed-up company - Dennis Quaid is the 51 year old "fossil" whose job Grace takes - Scarlett Johansson is Quaid's daughter - the rest is pretty fucking obvious - Not a bad little film though, Grace is funny and Quaid manages to not look like an idiot (which is pretty good for Quaid) - Johansson, who is usually great, gets stuck in a luckless thankless role that never goes much of anywhere - Cute is pretty much the best I can say about the film
Intermission (2003, John Crowley, Ireland): 52
What the ever-so-proper Brits did in Love Actually, now the down-n-dirty Irish get to do in Intermission - an angrier (albeit tongue-in-cheek) version of Curtis's Love Actually (or maybe a sub-Altmanesque Trainspotting ?) - either way, what we get is Collin Ferrell (on a much-needed respit from his Hollywood Schlock career) showing off his true colours (and voice - both accent and singing voice) - Not a whole lot of substance (another thing in common with Love Actually) but it does have heart (even if it's mostly a bitter jaded working class dog heart)
Intimate Strangers (2004, Patrice Leconte, France): 43
A woman trepiditiously walks into what she mistakingly believes is a therapist's office, only to find a tax attorney instead. She pours out her heart, never the wiser to her mistake, and the tax attorney instantly falls in love. What could have (and should have) been a psychologigical tour de force, beneath the tutelage of Patrice Leconte, who made the superbly sublime The Girl on the Bridge and The Widow of Saint-Pierre, instead is leadened down with the weight of a sanctimonious mundaneness, shallowly hidden behind a superficial veil of darkened rooms, hazy recollections and off-camera liaisons.
Starring the beautifully melencholy Sandrine Bonnaire and directed by the Auteur who once somehow managed to make a knife throwing act one of the most erotically charged scenes ever put onto film, in The Girl on the Bridge. It is a shame that Intimate Strangers is so mundane - mediocre in its entirety - tack on an improbably corny ending and you have this very atypical French middle class Bourgeois piece.
Kinsey (2004, Bill Condon, USA): 43
The story of a man who begat a revolution - the sexual revolution - and then became nothing more than a mere footnote in American History. Alfred Kinsey, who wrote several groundbreaking books on human sexuality may have been the original force behind such things as the free love era of the sixties and the sexual freedoms of the seventies, as well as at least a partial reason Stonewall happened and the Gay Rights movement began. Kinsey was all these things, yet today (until this film opened) nobody had any idea who Alfred Kinsey was. With all that said, I have to add that the way Condon decides to go with his BioPic, opting for the forgetable route instead of the revolutionary one, is almost as big a shame as no one remembering who Alfred Kinsey was in the first place.
In the recent (2004) tradition of taking a revolutionary and/or imaginative figure (Ray Charles, Che Guevara, J.M. Barrie, Howard Hughes, Jesus Christ) and summing his life up in a wholly standard and pedestrian formulaic manner, Bill Condon's Kinsey fits snugly in place into this plebianistic filmmaking style.
Well acted by Liam Neeson as Kinsey, Laura Linney as his wife Clara (aka Mac) and Peter Sarsgaard as Kinsey's assistant/lover, Clyde - but then these are three extremely talented Actors who would look good no matter what trite work they were stuck in (okay, maybe even Neeson's talents could never have saved Nell).
What we get with Kinsey is mediocrity disguised as art, and of course, another in a way too long line of formula BioPics.
Laws of Attraction (2004, Peter Howett, USA): 44
This film is predictible, as all Hollywood Films are (of course they will get together in the end - who can't figure that out from the previews alone) and it is rather bland visually (as most Hollywood Films are) - What this film has going for it are two funny, if not cliche'd performances by Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan (but Brosnan, doing Cary Grant, has never been funnier) - Although the verbal vollying is straight out of a forties Howard Hawks Film (or a Tracey/Hepburn vehicle), it lacks any real creativity - What almost saves it is the acting (although, both deserve much better material) - Maybe not well-crafted but at least quipishly funny at times, until (inevitably) it all falls to pieces in the end - What this film fails to do in its Forties Hollywood homage (a thing last year's Down With Love managed to do for its own Fifties Rock Hudson/Doris Day Films homage) is have the same playful attitude - Laws of Attraction only manages to do that in sparse moments, spread out across a definitively modern Hollywood movie
The Life & Death of Peter Sellers (2004, Stephen Hopkins, UK/USA): 54
With it's non-committal cinematic style and character asides played with joyous whimsy by Geoffrey Rush (doing a dead-perfect Peter Sellers), this film plays with a lot more energy than your typical Bio-Pic - Rush is fantastic as Sellers (being rather chameleon-like himself) and he shows the dark side of Sellers as well as the bright side - Unlike most Bio-Pics, which are usually quite pedestrian in their filmic mannerisms, Sellers plays with the medium of Cinema with a wild abandon that may not go near as far as someone like Godard or Kubrick (who is also a charcter in the film, played by Stanley Tucci), but still goes much further than most Hollywood biographies - Seen on HBO, I'm still not sure why no distributers picked this up for US release (it premiered at Cannes for Christs sakes) - Just for Rush and Charlize Theron alone, it should've been able to turn a profit
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004, Wes Anderson, USA): 60
Visually striking and oft times sublimely hilarious film by the creator of The Royal Tanenbaums (a somewhat superior film) - Bill Murray is again, at the top of his game, and Cate Blanchett and Owen Wilson are somewhere in the same range here - Although there are times where it looks as if Anderson has no idea where he is going with the story, it does pay off more than not - Plus the Art Direction is divine
The Machinist (2004, Brad Anderson, USA): 53
Sounding like Hitchcock, looking like something out of gloom-laden Gotham City (which incidentally is Mr. Bale's next Cinematic stop) and feeling like the rip-off bastard son of Memento and Fight Club, Brad Anderson's The Machinist, the sometimes harrowing / sometimes ludicrous look at a man slowly descending into his own personal hell, is a far cry from either of its fathers - Bale, who gives a much better performance than this film deserves, appears as if an aparition of himself, dropping to a ghastly 117 pounds or so for the role, and looking a lot more like Jack Skeleton than his upcoming Bruce Wayne/Batman persona, is the only near-saving grace of the film - Attempting to seem creepy and edgy, but doing it in such a blatent way as to be almost campy in its finished product, even if does show a visually pained look - and the twist ending ??? Who didn't see that coming ? (maybe I've seen too many films)
Mean Girls (2004, Mark Waters, USA): 55
A twenty-first century take on Heathers (which, by the way, was written by Daniel Waters, brother of Director Mark), without the bile that made that film a cult classic - admirably acted, especially Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams, but the film still manages to fall short of its intended target - Tina Fey (the best thing about Saturday Night Live these days) gives the genre of teen comedy a higher class than most do, and she does manage to deliver a funny (but stereotypical) script - The only real problem is (and this is the same problem the lesser Saved! had this past year), that no one ever goes far enough in their attacks on what kind of social jungle today's high schools are - Mean Girls hovers somewhere in between psycho-social treatise and plastic fluff teen angst chick flick, never truly realizing one or the other
National Treasure (2004, Jon Turtletaub, USA): 32
Somewhat enjoyable, albeit incredibly stupid Bruckheimer megamachine money maker - Nick Cage, who incidentally has still not been able to improve his peevishly annoying acting style since the last time I unfortunately encountered him, is just dim-witted enough to almost make this ridiculous mass audience treasure hunt work - almost - Predictable from beginning to end, full of plot-driven conveniences (it's a damn good thing that ship, which had been buried for nearly 200 years was only buried an inch beneath the Arctic Circle, or we wouldn't have been able to watch this oh-so placating piece of drivel) - Everything is here to make the perfect Jerry Bruckheimer movie: The impassioned hero, the girl who doesn't like the hero at first but ends up in love, the wisecracking sidekick, the villian with the foreign accent - After the two hours and twelve minutes or so, my friend, who shall remain nameless (to protect the guilty) leaned over to me and said, "You hated it, didn't you?" - I wouldn't say hate, nor would I even say disappointed (I expected a total fiasco), but just mildly bemused at how others could honestly enjoy it (my friend included) - Just another mediocre piece of fodder for the cannon
<New York Minute (2004, Dennie Morgan, USA): 33
As I have mentioned before, I've been searching out obviously bad films just so I can compile a worst ten list this year (hence why I watched Scooby-Doo 2!!) - But ya know what? - New York Minute wasn't half bad - of course it wasn't half good either (is that mathematically possible?!) - Anyway, to let my penis take over the review for just a moment: Any film that showcases seventeen year old twins, taking showers and running around the streets of New York in towels, can't be that bad!! - Okay, maybe I was half-joking there, but for what this movie is (a teeny-bopper screwball comedy aimed simultaneously at twelve year old girls and middle-aged perverts), it hits its admittedly 'low' mark - A mediocre attempt at updating Ferris Beuller, but still not the suspected horrid mess I had in mind - Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, surprisingly attractive girls, especially for what ugly monkey babies they were on "Full House", may not be in the same sex appeal category as someone like Scarlett Johansson, but they can actually act (somewhat, we're not talkin' Meryl Streep squared here!) and hey, let's not forget the towel scenes - which makes me wonder if the towels will come off now that the girls are eighteen - Nah, they'll probably keep doing fluff pieces until senility sets in - But anyway, I don't have a new addition to my Worst Ten List for 2004, but Garfield just came out on DVD, didn't it? - hmmm...
Oasis (2002, Chang-dong Lee, South Korea): 12
A tedious and boring film with a few teeny tiny spots of whimsy that shine through every once and a while - Quirky and fun lead performances from Kyung-gu Sol and So-ri Moon nearly make the tedium go away, but in the end it never does, and all we are left with is a rather drabby film with occasional specks of enlightenment
Open Water (2003, Chris Kentis, USA): 50
The stilted acting by these two "stars" starts off this film (still upon dry land) as if it were about to break into a porno flick at any moment (or maybe a reality TV show - which it most resembles). As we watch these two stressed-out way-too-pretty yuppies monatonally dredge up their mediocrity-laden one-liners and bicker so unbelievably unconvincingly - by the time they finally reach the water and are surrounded by sharks - you start to root for the sharks. I know I was.
With the inevitable comparisons to The Blair Witch Project this film should have, as that one did, made us jump from our seats. Sure Blair Witch was far from a great film - but as an experiment in terror, it worked - Open Water does not work. Director Chris Kentis has taken what could concievibly be a great premise and managed to pound at it with such blandness and character stupidity that we never care even one iota about what happens to these two people. Sharkbait or rescued - it just doesn't matter.
As for the dirty feel of the digital video format - that is the one thing that does work here. The camerawork manages to capture at least some sort of mood - even if the actors cannot. When the camera is poised on the open water that gave it its title, we feel a shift in mood away from the plebian essence of the script and toward something more like what Hitchcock would have wanted - not that this was anywhere near the level of what Hitchcock could have done with it (and sort of did with his Lifeboat).
All-in-all, Open Water ends up being a failed experiment at something that was already done (somewhat) right in the first place with Blair Witch. But at least I have to give Kentis kudos for a valiant effort at some sort of psuedo Cinema Verite - even if, for the most part, it was a failed one.
Osama (2003, Siddiq Barmak , Afghanistan): 59
Although filmed rather pedestrianly, there is still a powerful undercurrent in this film (the first Afghani film made since the Taliban took over in 1996) - A little girl must pose as a boy, in order to survive under the uber-masculine regime of the Taliban (The Taliban are shown as Nazis would be in a Holocaust film - and probably rightly so) - The girl, dubbed Osama by her friend (a name that, even today, stands for power and wisdom in Afghanistan) is never convincing as a boy, and of course, her doom is inevitable - The Final scene though, is a truly heartbreaking finale to a (up until then) standard wanna-be tear-jerker
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004, Robert Greenwald, USA): 37
There is nothing here that I wasn't already aware of (nor should any politically-aware human being) - But it is fun to watch the likes of evil-talking-head Bill O'Reilly being put into his place, and to see the extent that uber-conservatives will go to warp the minds of a blinded Amerika
p.s. (2004, Dylan Kidd, USA): 58
Not up to the near-greatness of Kidd's Roger Dodger, but still a pretty good film (if not a bit staid when it shouldn't be) - Laura Linney plays the sexy "older" woman to Topher (he's everywhere lately) Grace's young brash artist - She thinks he is the reincarnation of her dead teenage love, a situation that is dealt with on a much headier level in Johnathon Glazer's Birth - Well written and well played by all (Marcia Gay Hardon is delicious as a bitchy desperate housewife), especially Grace, who gives his best (and most audacious) performance yet
The Phantom of the Opera (2004, Joel Schumacher, USA): 39
I must admit that I like the music of Andrew Lloyd Weber, even if it is rather on the cheese-ridden side of things, but even with my enjoyment of the music, it falls completely flat in this overblown spectacle of a movie - Emmy Rossum has a wonderful voice and her physical beauty nearly matches the voice, but her acting abilities run the gamut from A to B (she does have that blank stare down pat though) - As for the Phantom himself, Gerald Butler just does not have the vocal range to pul this role off (nor does he have the stage presence) - Overall just a mediocre limp version of the story
Purple butterfly (2003, Lou Ye, China): 41
Watching the beautiful Zhang Ziyi on the screen is always a pleasure, and no less so here, and there are some great images here that play out like the legends of Antonioni, or more appropiately, Tsai Ming-liang, but the film seems to fall flat somewhere along the line - This film should be great, the cinematography is brilliant, Zhang is at her best and there are moments of some unexplainable intensity (like Zhang's reaction to the death of her brother or near the end, when Zhang shrinks away after just making love), but for some (there's that word again) unexplainable reason, I couldn't invest myself as deeply as I should have been able to - I'm an intellegent man, but the reasons still evade me (maybe I was just not in the mood tonight) - But even with all that, I can't dismiss this film , so I reluctantly give it a fifty-nine rating (but is that a reluctance to give it a higher grade or a lower grade - we may never know)
Red Lights (2004, Cedric Kahn, France): 54
What starts out looking (and sounding) very very Hitchcockian, full of great imagery and what seems like it's going to be tense, turns out, in the second half, to be nothing more than a standard extremely predictable pedestrian thriller - Hitchcock did it much better - for that matter so does Depalma and Lynch - If only Kahn stopped midway through and said that's it - cut!!
The Saddest Music in the World (2003, Guy Maddin, Canada): 57
Full of melancholy snowy climes, vaseline-rubbed lenses and near-orgasmic love of silent film that has made Winnipeg's Guy Maddin the great Auteur of the Nanook North - Saddest Music, Maddin's newest foray into the inner reaches of his warped brilliant mind is no different, and I mean that as both a good and a bad thing - Strangely original, Maddin is at the same time just repeating his genius over and over again - A good film from a master of modern (?) Cinema, but I can't help thinking I've seen it all before, mainly in Maddin's early masterpieces (Archangel and Careful) as well as his more recent amazement, Dracula: Pages From A Virgin's Diary - Saddest Music, probably Maddin's most accessible film to date, is a work of art when compared with most of World Cinema, but still low down on the Maddin oeuvre
Saved! (2004, Brian Dannelly, USA): 43
Going into this film, I was expecting something along the lines of the black comedy that filled Heathers and as I watched the opening credits and saw Michael Stipe's name listed as one of the Producers, my expectations sprang even higher. What I saw though, was a film attempting to lampoon the religious right without the aid of any biting satire. This film is a possible goldmine for satiric jabs at born-again Christians, but instead lays low its punches for a calmer, less acerbic tale.
The aptly monikered Mary (played well by the cute-as-cow-eyes Jena Malone) is a born-again Christian who finds out her boyfriend is gay. In a warped sense of duty, Mary tries to "ungay" him by giving up her virginity. This, of course fails dismally and the domino events all fall neatly into place.
Also along for the ride is the pop-star diva queen of the holy rollers high school, played by that pop-star diva queen herself, Mandy Moore and her wheelchair bound brother (hilariously named Roland) played by the long-absent Machauley Culkin. Culkin actually gives the most enjoyable performance of the film as the bitter jaded outsider who dresses as a roller skate for Hallowween and sits at the mall wearing a sign that reads "will dance for food". There are also all the others. The pretty boy skater. The acid-tongued Jewish girl who causes trouble. The pastor with a heart of gold and a weak constitution for fidelity.
All these characters add up to what should've been a funny satire on how being too religious can be a serious character flaw. Instead, we are stuck with a morality play that pretends to joke about God. Actually, no one ever goes so far as to joke about God (or Jesus). The Christian Science Monitor, a publication that, if done right, should've been this films biggest antagonist, gave this film a good review. Even the most jaded characters can see the love of Jesus in the end. A pro-Christian morality play vainly attempting to disguise itself as a satiric attack on the Religious Right.
The Sea Inside (2004, Alejandro Amenabar, Spain): 32
There are some films out there that are made to serve one purpose, and one purpose only - to win awards, most notebly, The Academy Award. The Sea Inside is just one of those single-minded films.
Although spotlighted with a strong performance from the always brilliant Javier Bardem, Alejandro Amenabar's latest film plays out like a second rate disease-of-the-week made-for-television movie. Luckily Bardem nearly manages to save this film from its own mundaneness - nearly.
Built to win Oscars (it most likely will take home Best Foreign-Language Film) and manipulate moods, The Sea Inside is the true story of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro, paralyzed from the neck down after a diving accident. Sampedro spent thirty years trying to convince the government and the courts to allow him the dignity of ending his own life. There are moments of real emotional heft here and there - but not everywhere. Bardem's ability to metomorphosize into a character is the one thing that holds this thin film together and keeps it from falling apart into yet another tepid, emotionally manipulative tear-jerker of a movie. Okay, this film does become that eventually, with or without Bardem, but hey, at least it has Bardem - imagine if it didn't.
Sex is Comedy (2002, Catherine Breillat, France): 59
Tender and sweet, in a malicious and demented kind of way - Breillat's look at the tumultuous filming of her 1999 film, Fat Girl (or at least one sex scene from Fat Girl) - Matter-of-factly frank in all its sexual imagery (or, shall I say, attempt at sexual imagery), especially an ongoing gag about a prosthetic penis that refuses to stay attached to the actor's own hidden manhood - Dry only at times, Sex is Comedy is still full of the sexual brutality omnipresent in all of Breillat's films (just watch Romance and/or the aforementioned Fat Girl for proof of that) - The sexual tension runs high in each and every character, and although there are several actors/charcaters coming and going throughout the story (a doe-eyed Assistant Director, a naive and self-centered ingenue and a cocksure (pun intended) blowhard actor who refuses to take direction), it is Anne Parillaurd (Le Femme Nikita) who steals each and every scene playing an essential doppleganger for Breillat - The moments where she is manipulatively coaxing performances out of her two trepiditious actors is some of the most exhileratingly sly acting I have ever seen - She will do anything to get her movie made..the way she wants it made - Finally reaching US shores in 2004, Sex is Comedy makes a great (although somewhat lesser) companionpiece to Briellat's other 2004 release, the philosophically lacerating, as well as arrogant and gloriously claustrophobic sex-as-weapon-as-original-sin Anatomy of Hell
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004, Raja Gosnell, USA): 3
I was thinking that this will be the first year that I've been able to compile a real Top Ten list by year's end - In the past I have had to wait until more obscure fare (the ones I tend to like best) come out on DVD (sometimes another year or two even), but now that I go to New York on a regular basis, I'll finally have a Top Ten list to be proud of - But then I thought, WOW! I don't have many films for a Worst Ten list (not that this should be a problem though, huh!?) - Anyway, I came up with some choices to force myself to endure, just to have some perspective on how great the really great ones are - Oh yea, by the way, Scooby-Doo 2 really really really sucks !!!
Shrek 2 (2004, Andrew Adamson, USA): 34
What the first Shrek had going for it was the quick-witted comic timing of Mike Myers, playing medium for the ghost of Peter Sellers. Not a great film my any stretch of the imagination, but still funny at times and somewhat original in its Mad magazine-esque satiring. What Shrek 2 has going for it is the obviousness of the number 2 placed at the end of its title.
Sequels are meant for one thing and one thing only: to make lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of money (Shrek 2 garnered in a mere 16 days more than the entire 6 month box office run of its predecessor). Once and a while a sequel will come along and rise above this one sole purpose, such as films like The Lord of The Rings sequels or The Empire Strikes Back or Grease 2 (just making sure you're paying attention!), but usually its creation is designed for one thing: to make money...lots of money. There's none of that pesky creativity or artistic ingenuity that gets in the viewers way. Just lots of familiar faces saying lots of familiar catch phrases and making lots of familiar money.
Sure, there are a few funny moments here and there. Antonio Banderas' sad-eyed kitty-assassin-for-hire. The not-so-subtle jabs toward anything remotely Disney. And Eddie Murphy is a highlight, but none of it is anything we've not seen before, a hundred other times in a hundred other movies in a hundred other theatres. The satiric energy of the first film is gone and the comic genius of Mike Myers is gone and so is whatever made the first film enjoyable. Here we are left with a simpler and blander Shrek. And although I liked the original Shrek far less than a lot of people, I still thought it mildly amusing, a thing I dare not say about this sad, tired film. But hey, look on the bright side: at least some Hollywood Producers made a lot of money. Now how's that for a happily ever after.
Spartan (2004, David Mamet, USA): 64
Spartan is a man's movie. A man's movie for men who don't eat quiche. Something old Norman Mailer could be proud of. A real ball-buster. A straight shooting, no holds barred - not a single word wasted on anthing but what is absolutely needed - kind of movie. A real man's movie for real men (even the few prominant women in the film are stone-faced aggressive or little boy whiny). Written and Directed by David Mamet - the quintessential foul-mouthed man's man.
But Spartan is something more than just testosterone-filled angst. It is an artistic film that moves ahead with an air of mystery and even some arrogant suspense (even if it gets mundane at some points). Spartan is a conundrum - a tough-as-nails action movie fit for Spike TV, mixed seamlessly with a precision-tuned articulate art film. A blend of brains and braun, rarely done successfully in Cinema - a blend that Mamet does so well. Spartan is a real man's movie - even if (like me) you eat quiche.
Springtime in A Small Town (2003, Tian Zhuangzhuang, China): 57
After nearly a decade of politically-based Cinematic exile, Tian re-enters the Film World with a deep, psychological near-masterpiece remake of an old Chinese film (which by the way, I have not seen) - Lyrical, haunting, desperation-dripping melodrama, where you can almost feel the breeze whisping its way through this small town, and through the lives of these four characters - A moody melancholy love triangle (quadrangle maybe?) with a quiet sadness that is equaled by its beautiful cinematography and tragic score
Stage Beauty (2004, Richard Eyre, UK): 45
Let me preface this review by saying that Billy Crudup is one of the most talented Actors working in Film today, and he is no different here - Okay, now we can move on - Stage Beauty reeks of formulaic audience pandering - With the exception of Crudup in the lead, the film suffers from having no spine and no discernible creative thought whatsoever - Claire Danes is totally wasted in a throw-away role, where she is constantly upstaged by Crudup, and never gets any teeth until the final scene - A bland, standard every-piece-in-its-proper-place kind of film, saved, only slightly, by the scene-chewing thespianic prowess of its cross-dressing lead, Billy Crudup
A Tale of Two Sisters (2003, Kim Joo-win, S. Korea): 54
Somewhat standardesque, but visually striking psycho-sexual-horror movie, full of the requisite quick flashes of blood and gore and the freneticly downhill spiraling mentality of its leads - Set in the same tone as the stylized modern horror films of neighbouring Japan (and its macabre Auteurs, Takeshi Miike and Kiyoshi Kurosawa), Kim Joo-win's attempt may come up short, when compared with them, but still has a touch of something that makes it worth the watching
Tarnation (2004, Johnathon Caouette, USA): 10
With a faux purity of emotional bitterness and a keen sense of pop culture kitsche, Tarnation plays like a white trash trip through a psycho-neurotic world of Oedipal inclarities and perversly abusive proclivities - Taking 1000's of hours of video and splicing it together to form a semblence of a life, and the life of his mentally unbalanced mother, Caouette has created something, not sure what, out of great tragedy and despair - It does make me wonder though, if his mother is this sick, and he loves her so much, why then has he shown the world how fucked-up she really is !?
Twentynine Palms (2003, Bruno Dumont, France): 73
Both intense and subtle - Dumont, in the same mindset as Antonioni, when he made Zabriski Point, gives us a quiet melencholy European look at the expanses of Western America, that you know can blow-up in your face at any given moment - This keeps you tense, even in the soft-spoken surreal scenes that are the quantum of the film - Both beautifully bold and disgustingly joyful - a masterstroke at suspense, even in those moments that should be peaceful and sedate
Twilight Samurai (2002, Yoji Yamada, Japan): 47
Plays like Kurosawa-light, but I suppose it would be rather difficult to make a Samurai film without being compared, usually unfavourably, to Akira Kurosawa - the Japanese Auteur who influenced the American Western moreso than any American Director ever did, and is responsible, in homage, to both The Magnificent Seven AND Star Wars.
Yamada doesn't do a bad job, if rather a little pedestrian, in his telling the story of a low-level Samurai stock clerk who instead of a lust for the sword, yearns to be just a simple rice farmer. A forlorn tale, more esoteric and cerebral than slash-and-burn adventure fare - more brain than braun you could say.
Twilight Samurai, which was nominated for Best Foreign-Language Film at last year's Oscars (it lost to the even more mediocre French-Canadian film, The Barbarian Invasions) is a cunundrum of Cinema. Somehow managing to be both a deeply thought-provoking diatribe on loyalty and honour at any cost (even the possible loss of love) and a staid meandering near-Hollywoodesque popular crowd-pleaser.
Although a great central performance, the film lags too much into a plebian monotony (though not nearly as awful as the American Hollywood vehicle, The Last Samurai) and in doing so never quite lives up to the promise of its premise. In the end, all is well and the tears of joy may commence - somewhere in there an art film was forever lost...
Uzak (Distant) (2003, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey): 71
I spoke of Tarkovsky in my above review for Sokurov's Moloch (how could I not?), and I probably shouldn't be tossing around all these comparisons again so soon, but it cannot be helped - Even the Director, Turk Nuri Bilge Ceylan can't help himself - Tarkovsky is referenced not once, not twice, but three times in Distant - There is one scene where Mahmut (the aged more steadied cousin) and Yusuf (his aimless younger cousin and houseguest) are watching Tarkovsky's Stalker (also reviewed on this page) - When Yusuf retires to bed, Mahmut quickly flips over to porn - Is this a deliberate attempt at saying the past is dead, that meaning is dead? - or does it just mean that meaning is dead in Mahmut, an aspiring filmmaker who once dreamt of being the next Tarkovsky and is now reduced to photographing tile samples for a local factory - This film is full of quiet reflective moments - The first ten minutes and the last are completely dialogue-free (maybe I should compare it to Tsai Ming-liang instead of Tarkovsky) - Whoever it should be compared to (if anyone) Distant is well worth the reflective time of watching it
Van Helsing (2004, Stephen Sommers, USA): 44
The black & white opening salvo (an homage to the classic Frankenstein) had me thinking I might actually like this film, but alas, this was not to be - Running its course like a James Bond film (hero has obligatory opening adventure, then goes to headquarters and gets his assignment from "M" and then gets some high-tech gadgetry from "Q" - it's all there, although in this case "Q", a Friar named Carl, goes on the adventure with James Bo..er Van Helsing) - In what could've been a well-crafted homage to the classic horror films of cinema, we only get a bunch of one-liners and a whole bunch of special effect bells & whistles, that really go nowhere - and that ending, oh my god, what Hollywood ass-kisser came up with that? - Okay, okay, it's not really a bad film (it has its moments) but it is far from good (although watching Kate Beckinsale leap about in that 19th Century Romanian bondage outfit definitely had its moments)
A Very Long Engagement (2004, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France): 49
Visually striking film from the creator of Amelie - Luckily it doesn't share much of Amelie's whiplash whimsy, instead going for a deper (if not still somewhat superficial) storyline - Borderline sentimental claptrap, but Jeunet manages to steer clear this time around - And Audrey Tautou is wonderfully quirky in the film, without being just a characiture, as she was in the sweet but too sugary Amelie
When Will I Be Loved (2004, James Toback, USA): 63
Heralded by many as nothing more than cheap theatrics and even cheaper porn - My opinion is of a somewhat higher form, and although it may be a cheap film (at least in an emotional way), Toback has formed touches of exciting and biting dialogue that reminds one of Dylan Kidd's Roger Dodger or even Tarantino on a lesser day - Add to that a marvelously sexual performance by Neve Campbell (an extremely underrated Actress - see Altman's The Company also) and this film ends up being a fun, if not cheap (and predictable), romp in the hay
White Chicks (2004, Keenen Ivory Wayans, USA): 1
Is anyone...I mean anyone really expected to believe that Shawn & Marlon Wayans, both 6'2", are actually a pair of skanky tight-assed weight-obsessed Hilton Sister rip-offs !?!??? - This is the worst case of total character stupidity since Robin Williams put on a mask as Mrs. Doubtfire - These two incompetant FBI agents would fool no one (they don't look white / they don't look like women!) let alone the friends of these girls !? - Totally unfathomable, totally unbelievable, totally a waste of a lot of celluloid that could have gone to making a film with at least the minutest amount of...um, I can't even go on with this review...I'm getting a splitting headache from the stupidity...do you hear that? It's America getting dumber !!! AAARRGGHH!! - I have been searching for a movie that could top my worst of 2004 list (which is saying a hell of a lot, considering I have seen both Garfield AND Scooby-Doo 2)...and it looks like this repugnant Wayans Bros. take on Some Like it Hot is the winn...er, I mean loser!!
Wimbledon (2004, Richard Loncraine, UK) 38
A gooey mooey love story where the only good moments are from the highly talented but underused Paul Bettany - Just another tepid British comedy in the vain of any old Hugh Grant film, where you know exactly what's around every corner and in every nook and cranny - Bettany though, is amusing with what little he has to work with
The Woodsman (2004, Nicole Kassell, USA): 62
Kevin Bacon's performance is so incredibly powerful and so multi-layered, that he actually makes one feel sympathy for his child molester character - In one scene, where he follows a literal little red riding hood into the park, and this usually morose character becomes just like a giddy schoolboy, I found myself actually rooting for him to be saved and turn away from his big bad wolf desires, not just for the little girl's sake, but for the sake of his own soul
Zhou Yu's Train (2002, Sun Zhou, China) 14
A lame attempt to match what Wong Kar-Wai did so beautifully in In The Mood For Love - A hazy, confusing story that is even worse than that, it's boring too - A mediocre Wong-wannabe
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