The Year’s Best Films

By Sean Chavel in Los Angeles

Many prognosticators of the Academy Awards have stated that there is no certain frontrunner for this year’s best picture. Yet in the mind of a film critic, there is no doubt what the year’s best films were. A film critic keeps a list of great films short-at-hand, and the memory of those movies stay with us all year long, day-in and day-out. When coming out of a great film, like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" which I thought was the year’s best, I knew it was going to stay on my mind all year long (it was released on March 19th of 2004). It was largely ignored at the box office only taking in modest receipts. "Citizen Kane," "It’s a Wonderful Life" and "The Shawshank Redemption" were box office underperformers too when they were originally released and now they have a unparalleled reputation. Due to so-so box office and a release date that is far from memory from many Academy voters, it’s likely to only land a few nominations, if any.

I am also keenly aware that "Before Sunset" (my number 2 pick) has no chance at the Academy Award either. In making my selections, I am not making choices that are reflecting winners of the awards season, and if I am, it’s only incidental. But I will be rooting for Sideways at the Oscars. These selections are pictures that I personally love, and this year-end review gives me a second chance to influence my preferences with my readers. A handful of my selections of the year’s ten best films were box office winners, and that’s incidental, because a couple of them were only marginally recognized. But I am certainly glad that some of my favorite films actually made money (even though I wish that the audience that went to see "The Passion of the Christ" three or more times had gone to see "Eternal Sunshine" three or more times instead). Some of these movies are fortunately still playing in theaters (look for now playing), or at the least, can be found on DVD at this time. In addition to my year’s top ten, there’s an honorable mentions list of an additional five movies which had admirable appeal to me, plus the year’s five worst films.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Michel Gondry’s film was the most unconventional of love stories, a fusion of romantic drama and science fiction that was head spinning at just about every single moment of every new scene. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet (in two of the year’s best performances) played the mismatched couple whom are so torn to pieces after a break-up that they decide, one at a time, to go in for a memory erasure procedure so they can forget the heartbreak. Dazzling, imaginative and incomparably humorous, the film’s uppermost achievement is its enchanting idea that romantic attraction is an instinct that is impossible to escape. Carrey and Winslet’s characters are an unlikely pair, yet it is cosmic destiny that they find each other despite all obstacles.

Before Sunset – Richard Linklater’s film is an unlikely masterpiece, but then again the iconoclastic filmmaker always overrides expectations. Who else could make a 90-minute talkathon into an enthralling movie? In simple terms, this is a love story with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (reprising their "Before Sunrise" roles from 1995) as past lovers that share a reunion for the first time in nine years. Slowly, methodically, they reveal their undying feelings for each other. It’s all talk between them and near the end there is a silent pause between them that is breathless in its anticipation, followed by an ending of extraordinary, if understated beauty. This is a film for those who value intelligence and unique human experience above all else.

Sideways – Two guys (Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church) go on the road to California wine country and find lots of trouble and romantic temptation. The problem is that Church is going to be married in a week, but has no shame in cheating on his fiancé. Giamatti’s character is a divorceé, a struggling writer, and a self-punishing pessimist, but he respects women even if he’s lousy in the company of them, and this attribute clashes with his friend’s instinctual womanizing behavior. Director Alexander Payne (whose previous films were "About Schmidt" and "Election") finds big laughs in ordinary everyday situations, especially in its observation of how friends torment each other. Giamatti gives the most perfect performance ever of a self-doubting loser, and Church is portraying a guy that most people doubt exist. But they’re wrong, many guys in this world are like Church, and the film is scathingly honest in putting every egotistical detail of his character up there on the screen. Now playing.

Fahrenheit 9/11 – Documentarian Michael Moore has been accused of a lot of things, including being a manipulative one-note anti-Bush demonstrator. But isn’t it naïve to believe that even the good politicians in the world that mean well, inevitably lie to the American public? Since America is always going to be in the dark on certain top secret agendas, doesn’t someone like Moore have the right to at least probe the political system and ask certain questions that the common citizen has the right to know? If anything, his film is an assembly of images and behind-the-scenes investigations of America’s war against terrorists that has largely been unseen until now; it’s to our benefit to see sights and sounds that are censored on commercial news. And has there been a better eulogy of a film honoring the people that died on September 11th?

Super Size Me – Proof that experiments with film can lead to awesome and entertaining results. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock decided to see what would happen to his body if he ate nothing but McDonald’s three times a day for thirty days straight. The film sees the link between junk food and the obesity epidemic in America, and then boldly explores how the cause of widespread malnutrition is likely corporate greed. Extremely clever, informative and utterly outrageous filmmaking.

Spider-Man 2 – Thrilling and virtuoso entertainment, but one of the reasons the movie succeeds is because it was accompanied by an actual screenplay (by Alvin Sargent) – something missing from most Hollywood action movies. Credit must go to director Sam Raimi for his believing in that wide-angle action photography; the sweeping and swooping camera moves is more exciting than cut-up, frenetic action splatter that is so existent in today’s movies. Tobey Maguire had much to do as Peter Parker, a hero caught in the middle of an identity crisis. Kirsten Dunst had enormous appeal and depth as the Parker’s longtime companion, and Alfred Molina had both maliciousness and intellect as villain Doc Ock. Hollywood should take note that fun movies don’t have to be stupid.

The Incredibles – An animation movie made with gargantuan amounts of humor and creativity, and also managed to be a nostalgic throwback to James Bond movies and superhero pictures in general. Mr. Incredible is a ruined superhero who has succumbed to the occupation of an insurance company representative (he’s a company drone!), but he comes out of retirement to fight evil once again. His family unit possesses superpowers of their own, but their powers are not arbitrarily introduced and then discarded. Writer/director Brad Bird exploits all of his imaginative concepts and hurls them into maximum overdrive, merging thrills, laughs and cutting edge imagery all at once. Now playing.

Million Dollar Baby – Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman come off as a couple of crabby old men that operate a grungy gym who slowly come around to recognize the talent of a girl fighter (Hilary Swank, in the year’s best performance by an actress). It starts out as a typical boxing picture about a novice fighter who rises to become a champion, but it transforms into an introspective story of surrogate fathers and daughters. The conclusion of the film is emotionally powerful – it will stay with you for weeks. Now playing.

Maria Full of Grace – A riveting docudrama about a teenage girl who becomes a Colombian drug courier. Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) has narrow options in her impoverished home country, and hastily decides that smuggling heroin into the United States will make her a quick buck. She regrets her decision when she learns how dangerous the job is. Required to swallow multiple pellets into the digestive system containing the drug, the process is potentially lethal if the shell breaks. On the journey, Maria witnesses fellow girlfriends succumbing to their poisonous death. Detail for detail, writer/director Joshua Marston excels in getting every harrowing facet of this current social problem up on the screen. This is the year’s best foreign film.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 – Now that the saga is complete, it’s clear now how Quentin Tarantino was fiddling with diverse genres (70’s kung fu cinema, 40’s film noir, Sergio Leone westerns, and so much more) to make the ultimate schizoid martial arts epic. But he improves on Vol. 1 by providing a richer story with more context, and gives the Bride (Uma Thurman) more motive to avenge Bill and the other members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Assembled together, Vol. 1 and 2 are coherent, and they compliment each other now. Some stretches are still too long, but Vol. 2 contains scenes of such audacious power and exuberance that they’re instant classic set-pieces of themselves.

Honorable Mentions:

Kinsey – Liam Neeson’s superb performance as the revolutionary sex researcher who was perceived by some groups as a social misfit catalyzes this often fascinating biopic. Filmmaker Bill Condon depicts a time in America when we were too innocent, and ignorant. Now playing.

The Passion of the Christ – Mel Gibson’s gruesome vision is perfectly valid as a portrait of not only Jesus’ suffering, but as a portrait of bloodlust conformists that banded together to torture someone they thought was just another lunatic that claimed to be the Messiah. Spiritually challenging but not as spiritually enlightening though as 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ (which was also met by great raging controversy at the time.)

Open Water – Relentlessly grim, but you have to admire a film that sets out to do one thing and accomplishes that thing with steadfast and unflinching vividness. In the film, a couple goes deep sea diving but are abandoned by their tour guide. It is a frightening film experience, and the couple exchange words like the kind of words you’d expect them to say when they realize they are likely to perish from freezing waters or a shark attack.

Shrek 2 – It was twice the movie that the original was in terms of visual concepts and character complexity, and Antonio Banderas in particular as Puss-in-Boots was one of the most memorable scene-stealers of the year.

The Ladykillers – A love-it or hate-it affair, with Tom Hanks as a peculiar professor-cum professional thief who has no shame in killing granny in order to walk away with a substantial loot. The bizarre joke of the movie, which many audiences preferred to reject, is that Hanks speaks in a motormouth intellectual rhetoric that no one around him seems to understand including the audience half the time. If you like that kind of a conundrum, then you might find the movie howlingly funny. I’ll admit that some people seeing it will shake their head disapprovingly.

The Year’s Worst Films

People have often asked me this year what I thought of Troy and I tell them it was stupidly written in parts but had occasional grand-scale epic action that impressed me in small doses (translation: I’ve seen worst movies). In regards to The Village, at least it tried to be different even though the Big Twist at the end was ho-hum (it’s not a terrible movie, just a big disappointment that’s not worth ever looking at again.) Nobody ever asks me about The Brown Bunny which is the most off-the-deep-end experimental picture that I’ve seen, and it’s pretty bad. And when it came to Hidalgo, I’ll admit I would have had no idea what that movie was about if I hadn’t been handed press notes by the studio (most audiences have the benefit of ads that illustrate the movie’s message, I went into the movie blind and uninformed and left almost bewildered). But there were certainly five worse movies this year that had me not only bored, but had me pulling my hair out.

5. Laws of Attraction – Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore were cast together in this romantic comedy specifically to attract an audience of their reflective age demographic, but what was stupefying is that the film feels like it was written at a 12-year old's level.

4. Against the Ropes – Meg Ryan wastes her talent playing someone that is so incredibly different than she is. Ryan portrays Jackie Kallen, the first female boxing promoter, in this lead-footed biopic with a narrative that runs seemingly on a string of petty disputes. It was also ugly in its sexism and also kind of pathetic with its self-conscious wisecrack dialogue.

3. The Whole Ten Yards – Somebody behind-the-scenes (possibly director Howard Deutch) must have had no idea what was going on because the movie on-screen is impossibly incomprehensible. Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry have one seen in a bar where they seem to look at each other with complete “what’s this scene about?” puzzlement. Awesomely bad.

2. Envy – It’s unbelievable how stupid this Ben Stiller-Jack Black (so-called) comedy really is. Black gets billionaire rich and old pal Stiller gets very jealous of his friend’s newfound success after his invention the Vapoorizer, a spray that makes dog poo vanish, goes through the roof. I never like giving away the ending, but I’m going to now. (Spoiler alert) Black loses all of his fortune when he’s sued, and all I can think is that anybody that understands business liability protection knows that a lawsuit can’t bankrupt a company president. Stiller was right when he declared that this movie had no right in being released.

1. Around the Bend – Michael Caine and Christopher Walken are wasted in a terminally sappy multi-generational family-bonding picture, with Josh Lucas as the youngest son. It is such a privilege these days to be given the opportunity to make a film, but I can’t believe first-time filmmaker Jordan Roberts decided to make this picture. Too many visits to Kentucky Fried Chicken, too much cutesy whimsy, and all in all, it has you in a sanctimonious chokehold. The ending, with the grandson jitterbugging out in the sticks, could be the lamest wannabe tearjerker movie ending ever. No other movie in 2004 was a bigger waste of my time.