With all the outlets I write for, none wanted this, so you guys get it.
10. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Could’ve been a dull gimmick movie, but by putting the viewer inside Jim Carrey’s mind as memories are being erased, Michel Gondry made Charlie Kaufman’s script soar.
Plus I’m a sucker for chicks who dye their hair weird colors.
9. THE POLAR EXPRESS IN 3-D IMAX
With “home theaters” getting state-of-the-art, and mall multiplexes looking more and more TV like, the line between cinema and home viewing has been almost irreversibly blurred, until now. IN 3-D IMAX, THE POLAR EXPRESS offered a groundbreaking new spectacle that simply cannot be experienced at home (unless you’re Bill Gates and can afford a personal IMAX, perhaps). Viewing it in this format is a revelation, like seeing color film for the first time. Even when the story sags at the end, there’s so much to look at that it doesn’t matter.
The 2-D version is okay. But I hope the 3-D version becomes a perennial so I can catch it every year.
8. TAMALA 2010: A PUNK CAT IN SPACE
For sheer weirdness and audacity alone, this demented cartoon by Japanese music collective t.o.l. takes the cake. I really hope it becomes available on Region 1 DVD so you’ll have the first clue what I’m talking about.
7. TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE
Fuck Yeah! There’s so much to love here, unless you’re a totally humorless lefty (funny how my right-wing friends weren’t bothered by the jokes at their expense, but many of my liberal buds were). There’s the puppet sex scene, which more closely resembles real sex as I know it than most over-glossed movie love scenes. There’s the soundtrack, which I haven’t stopped playing yet. The skewering of clihes that you didn’t even realize were cliches until you saw them parodied (“Why can’t they ever do this the easy way?”). The out-of-nowhere Star Wars references. The amazingly detailed set design (an Oscar nom for art direction is a must).
And let’s not forget, it’s a big studio action movie accomplished entirely without the use of CGI (save the opening credits, which doesn’t count).
6. DONNIE DARKO: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT
Every nit-pick I had with the original has been fixed. Now I get it.
5. TAE GUK GI: THE BROTHERHOOD OF WAR
A Korean war epic that’s one of the best war films ever made (how many times have I said “ever made” in this feature now? God, I’m lame sometimes). Beats Spielberg at his own game, on his own blockbusting terms.
4. MILLION DOLLAR BABY
The latest installment of Clint Eastwood’s ongoing cinematic saga about being a man. You either love this sort of thing, or you’re a pussy.
3. HERO
Amazing martial arts, incredible set design, flashbacks upon flashbacks that are never confusing, and a tale of honor and manhood. Some found the message too communist, but patriotism isn’t exclusively a totalitarian virtue. My favorite Jet Li film of the ones I’ve seen.
2. HELLBOY
Did everything a comic book movie should, yet remained very much an idiosyncratic Guillermo del Toro movie at the same time. Had the talented Ron Perlman in the lead role. Made the original comic creator a heavily involved consultant so his vision wouldn’t be bastardized. It all sounds so easy, but it rarely ever goes this right.
1. NAPOLEON DYNAMITE
Flippin’ sweet! No movie entertained me or obsessed me this much in 2004. I feel like I know every character personally, and they’re all insanely quotable — even my six-year-old brother knows the chapstick routine by heart. Those who dismiss the film as crude mockery might prefer the standard sentimentalized nerd movie in which the hero is really good looking and capable, and none of his problems are ever really his fault, but real nerds aren’t like that — they often are obnoxious, passive-aggressive, and everything else that’s abrasive about Napoleon. The thing is, it’s possible to love them in spite of that, or even because of it. The soundtrack is the year’s best, with cheesy synth doodling and perfectly chosen tunes.
As for the aggressively delivered non-profane profanities, the funny thing is that it’s not a deliberate goof, but rather due to the fact that writer-director Jared Hess and star Jon Heder are Mormons, and won’t swear or take the Lord’s name in vain, hence “Gosh!” and “freakin’ idiot!”
Chicks dig guys with great skills, and Napoleon’s got ‘em. Pass the Tots, and watch out for the chickens’ talons.
i have to disagree on hellboy in part; knowing that mignola was involved in the production just makes it all the wierder that he DID allow his vision to be bastardized in some very very strange ways.
the movie is pretty good, but compared to the comics, it’s all wrong. i actually like it and hate it at the same time.
Indeed, I guess we have to wait for Sin City to get the hardcore detective comic noir that was conspicuously absent from Hellboy.
Do you really consider Sin City a “detective” comic? I know there are detectives in it, but it always struck me as being more about booze, babes, and blood than the actual solving of any mystery.
Batman, technically speaking, is often a detective comic (literally titled as such!), but none of the movies have ever gotten that part right. Hoping this new one will.
Dunno Hellboy all that well, but what I have read of the comics seems consistent with the movie. Anyone seen the extended director’s cut? I don’t feel I need more, but if it’s super fantastic I might get it.
It’s not so much the detective as it is the noir. The comic was both, and the movie is neither.
And don’t bother with the Director’s Cut. Unless you really want whatever extras it has, I only noticed one major addition from the theatrical version, and it was worthless.
Spiderman 2 by the way, was not only a much better comic book movie, but damn fine on it’s own merits. Not even a contest.
Cool. No need to by the director’s cut then. I’m perfectly happy with Hellboy as it is.
I vastly prefer it to Spider-Man 2, though. Much more a Del Toro movie than SM2 is a Raimi movie. I still don’t get why Doctor Octavius would give his mechanical arms an evil independent intelligence, monitored only by an exposed microchip that is highly vulnerable to damage (Doc Ock in the comics was a bad guy on his own motivation, not because he became “possessed".
Love the poster, though, where, as my friend Chris Sivertson put it, Kirsten Dunst looks like she’s just been fucked really hard.
P.S. Max, the wooden chairs you left with me have just been immortalized in the movie “Mad Cowgirl.”
Well, I think the only movie I came close to hating on your list is The Polar Express. And I didn’t hate that, just thought it was lame (hate gets reserved for Shrek 2). I also didn’t really care much for Butterfly Effect. But glad to see Hero get some love over House Of Flying Daggers, couldn’t agree more about Donnie Darko: Director’s Cut and Hellboy pretty much ruled (at least until Spidey 2 came out, which I liked more, although I hold exactly the same reservations about the AI in the tentacles — that didn’t make any sense). Anyway, good list…mine is somewhere on my website, but I’m too lazy to find the link.
Does my heart good to see one otehr notable Shrek 2 hater — seems like I’ve been standing alone on that for months. (One email a week at least until I finally closed comments on that review.)
As for Polar Express, did you see it in 3-D IMAX? Makes all the difference in the world.
Yeah, I did — and I was actually completely enthralled throughout the film, entirely because of the amazing technology on display. I only wish it had been at the service of a decent film (to be fair, I’m a huge fan of the book, which this utterly failed to capture the spirit of). If anything, it left me incredibly excited about James Cameron’s upcoming 3D feature.
And speaking of James Cameron and 3D — I just caught his new doc, Aliens Of The Deep, which aside from having a horribly title and the same rather pedantic faux-produndity that plagued Ghosts Of The Abyss, is pretty damn astounding. The images he captures are breathtaking — and the more-pristine-than-ever 3D photography is the perfect tool with which to capture it. Makes me want to become a marine biologist.
Did anyone have trouble burning the Napoleon Dynamite CD? I tried on several different computers with different settings and I just couldn’t get it to work. Didn’t know if it was because it had movie dialogue and songs interspersed?