Favorite Movies 2004

I've seen 128 movies in theatres this year, and here are my awards...

***FAVORITE MOVIES - 2004***
1- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2- Kill Bill Volume 2
3- Garden State
4- Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
5- In Good Company
6- The Incredibles
7- The Motorcycle Diaries
8- Million Dollar Baby
9- Sideways
10- The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

11- The Machinist
12- The Notebook
13- Closer
14- Hotel Rwanda
15- Finding Neverland
16- House of Flying Daggers
17- Spiderman 2
18- The Day After Tomorrow
19- Hidalgo
20- Troy

21- Before Sunset
22- Collateral
23- Meet the Fockers
24- I Y Huckabees
25- The Bourne Supremacy
26- The Girl Next Door
27- Saved!
28- The Final Cut
29- The Village
30- Alfie

***SEPARATE AWARDS - 2004***
Funniest Movies of the Year -> 1-Anchorman 2-Team America 3-Napoleon Dynamite
Biggest Disappointment of the Year -> Open Water
Should've been a Masterpiece but wasn't -> The Village
Best Appreciated with Second Viewing -> 1-Alfie 2-I Heart Huckabees 3-The Village
Best Fucking Awesome Movie of the Year -> The Machinist
Best Romantic Movie of the Year -> The Notebook
Best Superhero Movie of the Year -> Spiderman 2
Best Horror Movie of the Year -> Saw
Best Epic Film of the Year -> Troy
Best Cinematography -> Hero
Best Special Effects -> Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Best Story of the Year -> Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Best New Actor -> Bryce Dallas Howard
Best New Child Actor -> 1-Emily Browning 2-Freddy Highmore 3-William Ullrich
Best New Director/Writer -> Zach Braff
Best Animated Movie of the Year -> The Incredibles
Instant Classics -> 1-Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow 2-The Girl Next Door 3-Shaun of the Dead

***BOTTOM 10 - 2004***
10- Surviving Christmas
9- Raise Your Voice
8- The Stepford Wives
7- Silver City6- Envy
5- King Arthur
4- The Alamo
3- The Forgotten
2- Van Helsing
1- The Grudge

Beyond the Sea

Kevin Spacey surely worked hard in this movie, as he produced, directed, wrote and starred in it, and the final result is just a masterpiece. Oh yeah, he also danced and sang all the songs himself.

Beyond the Sea is the story of Bobby Darin, one of the top entertainers of the 50s and 60s, who's never gotten the recognition that others from his era like Frank Sinatra have, but that Spacey has admired since forever, and he knew it was his job to bring it to the big screen, and thank him for that, because for someone like me who's never heard the name Bobby Darin before, I am now very interested, specially because when Spacey started to sing, I actually knew most of the songs, I just didn't know they were Darin's work.

I have to put emphasis in Spacey, who was just perfect, and I'm very happy that he got a Golden Globe nomination, because in this very busy Holiday season, with lots and lots of movies fighting for Awards coming out all at the same time, Beyond the Sea is already being ignored.
The rest of the acting was excellent too, starting with Kate Bosworth playing Darin's wife Sandra Dee. Her first big scene kind of puzzled me though: she was crying, but they made close ups to her face more than once and she had no tears in her eyes, she was not crying. And her eyes weren't any close to start to cry either. It looked really weird. Still, I believe Bosworth has it in her to be a great actress.
I also really liked the kid playing Little Bobby Darin (William Ullrich) who I thought I've seen him before but no, it was his debut. He was good.

The central part of the movie was too melodramatic maybe and kind of slow, but it showed some of the best acting. That minor detail it's forgiven by a first hour and a last half hour that were just excellent and really entertaining, which coincidentally were the ones that contained the music.

The Aviator

Martin Scorsese's latest is overhyped, and I didn't like it. Sorry, but I had to open like that, because this movie is going to win the Oscar, but just for the lack of other big Hollywood movies this year (Indies and not big Hollywood productions was really what it was all about this year), and because Scorsese deserves to get one for directing and not get one in 20 years as Life Achievement Award.
The main performances here are great, so that saved it for me a little bit, but overall I just couldn't get me to like it.

I'll start with Leonardo DiCaprio, which I've loved pretty much in everything he's done, and he's truly excellent here as Howard Hughes. We see his passion (to the point of obsession) for airplanes and women, spending on them huge amounts of money without caring. Hughes is crazy about them, and DiCaprio is plays him with a maturity and power that I haven't seen on him before.
I haven't seen Jamie Fox's Ray yet but DiCaprio is my front runner to win the Oscar so far. I loved Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine), Paul Giamatti (Sideways) and Johnny Depp (Finding Neverland), but Leo's performance is just too powerful.

Virginia Madsen (Sideways) is going to have a hard time too, because Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn is also wonderful. I'm really loving Cate this year after watching The Life Aquatic and The Aviator in a row, she's awesome.
I have to point out that I started hating Hepburn at the beginning of the movie. I don't know if she was really like that but the first minutes she's onscreen she's so annoying I thought I wasn't going to be able to listen to her for three hours (though she's not in the movie all the time but yes, the movie is two hours fifty minutes long). But then she got close to Hughes, and she was just lovable, and Blanchett's performance was just excellent.

Then there's Kate Beckinsale playing a not very good written Ava Gardner (I didn't get why she was with Hughes nor when did they get together, she just appeared on the movie with him). Alan Alda, Alec Baldwin and Ian Holm are also there and they are all good. And Gwen Stefani playing Jean Harlow just because she looks like her.
The character is only in the movie for one scene, and she's the only other star (besides Hepburn and Gardner) that we see Hughes date, though he's supposed to have dated everybody in Hollywood, taking a different Star to each movie premiere. This was a problem for me, as I felt that the Stefani's character was only created to get her in a movie.

So where are my problems? I'm having trouble finding them, but it's mostly the hype this movie has, specially because I think that other directors (like Alexander Payne, Michel Gondry, Walter Salles, Quentin Tarantino and Michael Mann) did a better job this year than Scorsese, who didn't do a bad job at all, but I just didn't see anything in the movie that made me think he was great. My other problems come from something I don't really know how to explain but is reflected on some little things. For example, we all knew that Jude Law was in this movie playing Errol Flynn, but guess what? He's in it for only a two minutes scene (made just to show him) and then he's in the back in another scene. Willem Dafoe is also here for a one minute scene.
The movie is just full of shit I think, and Scorsese deserved the Oscar a few years ago for Gangs of New York (though I can't remember his competition right now) and not now for The Aviator, a not so good written Hollywood movie about Hollywood. Just give it to Leo and Cate.

Spanglish

Spanglish is James L. Brooks follow up to the awesomely acted As Good as it Gets, and while the performances here are nowhere near as good as Jack Nicholson's and Helen Hunt's, this new cast pulls it off in the acting department, and is Brooks the one that fails with his story and the characters he created.

We have Paz Vega as Flor, the protagonist of the movie, she moves to the US from his natal Mexico with her young daughter (Cristina) and goes to work for the Clasky family composed by John (Adam Sandler) and Deborah (Tea Leoni) who are joined by their son (who's barely two minutes in the movie and is not part of anything that happens), their also young daughter Bernice, and Deborah's mother Evelyn (Cloris Leachman).

Those are the players, so what happens? We have a few different subplots between them that don't make for a good story when put together.
First of all, Flor doesn't speak any English, so for a big part of the movie, we have her only speaking in Spanish (not translated which turned out great), not understanding completely what's going on with the family she works for, but knowing that they're all having problems. Those problems include mostly Deborah, who is just crazy and hurts everybody around her without noticing, like by giving Bernice clothes that don't fit her so since she's a little chubby she'll want to lose weight to wear the clothes.
At the same time, John is given an award as the Best Chef in the country, but for some reason he can't take the pressure, and we get all these scenes of him just getting worked up about it and getting frustrated and it's just unjustified and over reacted.

At this point we get the family moving to their beach house or something and taking Flor with them, and making her bring Cristina with her (who they hadn't met yet) so she would accept.
Now with Cristina in the picture the players have more problems. Deborah totally loved her and gives her total attention while ignoring Bernice completely. She also starts having an affair with her realtor.
Flor gets mad because of Deborah's actions, as she gets Cristina in a private school and Flor feels she's being transformed by the Americans and that she's going to lose her roots (which seems to be what Cristina wants). She gets very preoccupied and even starts to learn English so she can manage herself and protect her daughter better.
That preoccupation gets John interested in her. He doesn't know Deborah is having an affair but knows that she's just a terrible mother, and so seeing Flor protect her daughter like this, plus Flor's beauty, make him fall in love with her.
Evelyn's participation is mostly for laughs and that's it because we know nothing about her other than she drinks a lot, and like Deborah, she wasn't a good mother either.

The acting by Paz Vega is great, struggling with her daughter and the language barrier. Adam Sandler is ok, but his character is just a normal, likeable guy that we don't really care for. Tea Leoni plays Deborah like the crazy person she is, and it's great acting, but the character is just a bad person and we don't care about her either.

By the end of the movie we get a story that falls apart, that doesn't teach us anything and that it's just no good, so we end up just not caring for any of them.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Wes Anderson's marine adventure is without a doubt, one of the Best Movies of the Year, but in a very strong year, it wont get recognized, just like his previous masterpiece The Royal Tenembaums.

We follow the story of the titular filmaker and oceanographer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) and his group of marine life researchers and adventurers (much like Jacques Cousteau), in their search for the 'Jaguar Shark' that killed Steve's best friend Esteban (also member of the group ) in their previous adventure.
Before leaving, they get 2 new members: Steve's son Ned (Owen Wilson) whom he's never met (and is not sure if he's his son for sure), and Jane (Cate Blanchett) a journalist writing a cover story about Steve.

And so they embark their super awesome ship, The Belafonte (which includes a Swedish sauna with a paid masseuse btw) and they go on an adventure unlike any other, when we'll get family relations, romance, crime, kidnapping, fun, music, incredibly amazing (and non-existent) species, oh, and pirates!!! All documented on camera for cinematic purposes of course.

Bill Murray and Owen Wilson are excellent in their scenes together, and Wilson's relation with Cate Blanchett is great too. Blanchett was pregnant during filming, and so Jane is pregnant too, and she looked more beautiful than ever here (loved the tattoo).
The rest of the group brings more laughs than anything and it works great, specially when delivered by the awesome Willem Dafoe and his Klaus (he's German) and Jeff Goldblum's Alistair Hennessey, Steve's nemesis, and his wife Eleanor's (Angelica Houston) exhusband.
Wes Anderson's wild imagination with the supporting character shows, as we have lots of them in The Belafonte's crew, including a stripper girl who's always naked, and 5 unpaid interns just looking for college credits.

Special recognition goes to Seu Jorge, who portrays the Portuguese Pele who takes care of the sound in the Belafonte, the documentaries, and 90% of the actual movie's score, as he translated David Bowie's songs and performed them on camera with his guitar.

All in all the movie is a lot like The Royal Tenembaums (not sure which one is better yet), with The Life Aquatic adding action but with less character development, mostly because there are more this time, with the main 5 or 6 are more than well developed.
Also, Wes Anderson's supreme storytelling story needs to get recognized again, but since he already got an Oscar nod for Tenembaums, and with so many great original stories this year, it's going to be tough, but it's deserved.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Lemony Snicket is a good movie, with a feeling of Tim Burton and Jumanji that make for weird, great stuff, but overall is too much for kids, with just some performances to love for the adults.

Jim Carrey is great as Count Olaf, and though everybody is fascinated by his performance here, I think he was better as the Grinch a few years ago, and better yet in many of his other movies being the comedies or dramas. Maybe is just cause I didn't like the character very much.

The kids I did like, specially Violet, played by Emily Browning, she's great. The unfortunate events happen to them, but they don't panic, they play it cool and find a way to figure everything out. Baby Sunny was lovely too and I really liked how the movie translated her 'monkey' talk.

Then there are a lot of other characters, like Meryl Streep's Aunt Josephine which I didn't like, Timothy Spall's Mr. Poe and Billy Connolly's Uncle Monty who I did like. There's also Count Olaf's gang formed by Luis Guzman, Craig Ferguson, Jamie Harris, Jane Adams and Jennifer Coolidge, a great group totally wasted, as they're just there to show us that Count Olaf has a group, but they have nothing to do in the movie (some of them don't even talk).

Overall the movie is ok, but not the very good I was expecting if it didn't blow me away. And the story was a problem for me, too many coincidences with Jumanji I guess, but I didn't care for it.

Ocean's Twelve

I loved Ocean's Eleven, one of the coolest movies I've ever seen. It was awesome and great fun. Ocean's Twelve? Not cool, and less awesome and fun, but still good.

This one is really different to Eleven, mostly because it's set in Europe, and though I normally love movies set in Europe, I felt they didn't make use of the European cities as well as they should.

The chemistry between the cast is still excellent, and Vincent Cassell (Brotherhood of the Wolf, Irreversible, Monica Belluci's husband) was great being the addition to the cast as well as Catherine Zeta-Jones who had excellent chemistry with Brad Pitt.
Most of them play same time as in the first though there are some changes: Matt Damon is more time on screen now and plays a major part in the story, Julia Roberts stays out of it for a long, really long time and then comes back for the finally when she's in all the time, Bernie Mac is the one that lost the most time and protagonism.
Brad Pitt's part is bigger than George Clooney's this time and the rest of the guys are mostly the same.
Catherine Zeta-Jones gets lots of time being the good cop trying to get them and Vincent Cassell plays the nemesis of the group as they compete (in stealing that is) for the same prize. Cassell gets lots of time here.
Andy Garcia is back and he starts its all and then disappears until the end of the movie.

Overall, a very different movie than the first one but still enjoyable though I felt it was kind of slow at parts. And definitely not better than the first one.

Closer

Mike Nichols' powerful character driven drama is one of the best movies of the year, and it'll get a lot of awards, and very well deserved.
Based on a play by Patrick Marber (who also adapted it to the big screen), the movie deals with love, sex and passion and the conversations as real as possible, even when they're painful and cruel, specially when they talk about fucking, very explicit.
The movie is very small too, there's only 4 main characters and then only 2 more actors listed in the credits but they do not participate in the movie at all. The score is also worth mentioning.

The performances are all great, and I'll start with the one and only Julia Roberts (or 'My Julia' as I, her biggest fan ever likes to call her) as Anna, and she's marvelous. Better than Erin Brockovich? I couldn't say right now, haven't seen that one in a while, but this one is sure excellent and worthy of an Oscar nomination (just cause Kate Winslett has the best performance by an actress this year with Eternal Sunshine). She does laugh, or smiles really, and I loved that, but when she put on the drama she was brilliant.

Jude Law, who I still really like and do not think (like some) that he's over exposed this year with so many movies (all of them good to excellent with great performances by him), plays Dan, and he's great. Funny, romantic, serious, sad, he does it all perfect. Oscar worthy? I don't think so. There's been too many better starring performances by actors this year like Depp, Foxx, Giamatti, Carrey, DiCaprio and Neeson to name a few, plus his performance is surpassed by the other man in the movie.

And that man is Clive Owen as Larry, a magnetic portrayal that I really couldn't take my eyes out of him. He also does it all, but with much more power than Jude Law. He was in King Arthur, but that movie was so bad that we couldn't see his acting range, and now he left me really impressed, and I would love for him not to get the James Bond role now, cause he'll go into action roles and he'll have less time to do this dramatic acting he does so well.
He's getting an Oscar nomination this year for sure, and it's going to be between him and Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) for the win.

Natalie Portman is a tricky one for me, I really don't like her. And though I do find her beautiful, I'm not attracted by her (she's too small), but here, she's the only one that makes you look at her instead of Clive Owen. Of course, it helps that she's almost naked and playing a stripper for a good part of the movie. And no, we don't see her fully naked but just remember those strippers in the strip clubs and she's just like them, lap dance and all, but with her top on.
But wait, she's not all about that, as her acting goes far beyond what she did in Garden State. She's extremely great here as Alice, and she'll get a nomination too.

Again, the cast is so good (I just read they just won the National Board of Review award for Best Ensemble Cast) , and the story, while small in relation to all the epics and biopics we've had this year, is just a good or better than most of what we've seen this year and is sure to get the recognition it deserves.