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THE BEST FILMS OF 2004
The Top Ten
10. The Incredibles - It's just so much fun. It is 2004's ultimate piece of derivative filmmaking… yes, a good thing… because the reconstruction of all the genre materials does manage to be greater than the sum of its parts
9. The Bourne Supremacy - When I wrote about this film over the summer, the result was a flood of e-mails from various members of the production team who wanted to make sure that the accolades were spread around to everyone who contributed. The team effort, lead by director Paul Greengrass, producer Frank Marshall, screenwriter Tony Gilroy and Matt Damon brought together one of the best and most thoroughly satisfying action movies in years.
8. Hero - The more powerful of Zhang Yimou's two masterworks this year… though it sat on the Miramax shelf for more than two years before finally getting released here in the U.S. The film is a Rashomon take on a classic Asian legend about The Emperor and The Assassin. Its thematic chapters are set in distinct palates by Zhang and rock star D.P. Chris Doyle. It reverberates as deeply as the amazing drums of its score.
7. The Polar Express - IMAX 3D - How could a movie that so misses the mark in one format be one of the best films of the year in another? I've never seen anything quite like it before. But in IMAX 3-D, this films transforms into one of the great movie experiences you will ever have. You are inside the book. And all of the work the Bob Zemeckis & his legions put into it can be seen and appreciated fully. Ironically, this format was an afterthought. But as it worked out, it is definitive… as a film and as an IMAX experience.
6. Million Dollar Baby - Eastwood has become the ultimate deconstructionist and M$B is so curt and clean that some mistake it for being simple. But the score of this film, written by Eastwood, very much works as a metaphor for the rest of the film. It is quiet and subtle, laying out one brisk note after another… but it so distinctly fills the void that it is as powerful as most any cacophony.
5. Bad Education - Almodovar's creation suggests an artist working around the apex of his powers. There is so much going on here and so few easy landmarks that Almodovar has pushed his work right out of the comfy awards cradle that he has gotten used to. But this groundbreaking fag noir is, in the best way, a film that one cannot imagine any other filmmaker conceiving and achieving.
4. The Motorcycle Diaries - Walter Salles' coming of age road movie just happens to be the story of one of the most iconic and individually uninvestigated figures of the last 20th century. But mostly, it is the journey of two young men who do what most people only talk about. Somehow, the film got caught in the political crossfire of the American election cycle and got pulled out by the undertow. But it will last long after this election was forgotten.
3. The Five Obstructions - A film that every young artist must see... perhaps the best ever made about the nature of art. The young lunatic tries every way he can to stop the elder statesman from expressing himself, trying with obstructions to turn one man's art into a reflection of his own. But as with any artist worth their salt, the work will out.
2. Sideways - Alexander Payne has made four features in eight years and two of them are destined for inclusion on any legitimate list of the best films in history. If Election was from the land of Wilder & Sturges, Sideways is an American reflection of the best humanist cinema of France and Italy. This masterpiece dares to be slight… as in the framework of a complex universe, every human life is slight. But the nature of human fear and the power of the heart to overcome… it is rarely writ any larger than it is here.
1. Born Into Brothels - One person can change the world, one person at a time. Zana Briski is one of those people who is willing to put everything on the line and this remarkable document of her experience at the bottom of India's caste system with children who still have not been inescapably tainted is one of the most moving and unforgettable films you will ever see.
The Runners Up | Numbers 11-20 | The Top Ten | The Worst
E-Me .. Can you top ten that?
