2004 Movies

Just like last year, I found a list of movies released in 2004 and figured out which of them I'd seen. And then I fairly arbitrarily ranked them roughly in the order I enjoyed them.

Note that I'm not claiming this is in order of quality. It's strictly based on which movies I enjoyed more than others. So if you're going to tell me how I'm an idiot for not liking a movie you liked (or liking a movie you hated), please don't bother.

1. Shaun of the Dead
2. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
3. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
4. Hero
5. The Incredibles
6. Blade: Trinity
7. Hellboy
8. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
9. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
10. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
11. Team America: World Police
12. Shrek 2
13. The Butterfly Effect
14. Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
15. I, Robot
16. The Village
17. Torque
18. You Got Served
19. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
20. Van Helsing
21. Spider-Man 2
22. Jersey Girl

That's 22 movies, down a bit from 2003's 26. And it does count movies from this year that I only saw on DVD (which are, I think, Shrek 2, The Butterfly Effect, Jersey Girl and You Got Served.). The top three are the movies that I really, really enjoyed, and the bottom four are the ones which really, really annoyed me.

Let's start with the movies I hated. I had really high hopes for the Lemony Snicket movie, but it just fell flat for me in so many ways. The kids came off as dull and passive (personally, when I'm trapped in a car on the railroad tracks and a train's coming, I break the windows to get out) and the predicaments were repetitious, because the first three books were all crammed into one movie. So the whole movie consisted of the kids in trouble, then escaping, then being in trouble, then escaping, and so on. And the style of the books, which is what I love about them, was almost totally taken out so they could make more room for CGI Baby Jokes. Ugh. Also, the movie ended sentimentally, which is all wrong for the material.

Next, Van Helsing. This movie was just terrible.

Spider-Man 2 is popular. I understand that. Whenever Roger Ebert mentions it, he calls it "the best superhero movie ever made," which is a statement with which I strongly disagree. The movie is full of violations of the most basic superhero tropes (if he continues to take his mask off this often, the only person in New York City who won't know his secret identity will be J. Jonah Jameson. Which I admit will be kind of funny as he publishes "WHO IS THE SPIDER-MAN?" headlines and everyone else snickers behind his back) and Peter Parker, who's supposed to be a supercoordinated genius is made out to be a clumsy idiot. Why exactly is Spider-Man tripping over his feet? Why does he need help shutting down Octavius's reactor? He's a genius! He wrote a paper on this exact subject! Can Peter really not figure out how to hold down a job? He apparently can't even manage to get to a play on time, and we're told this happens repeatedly. His powers fade because -- why, exactly? Because he doesn't believe in himself? Or something? And I try not to compare movies to the source material, but come on! Spider-Man is a cocky, sassy, wisecracking superhero. Tobey Maguire is playing him as Peter Parker in a mask. This does not qualify as an interesting look at secret identities; it qualifies as a dull, whiny guy with some interesting abilities. Anyway, yeah. I sat through the whole movie fidgeting with boredom, which gave me plenty of time to pick apart the numerous flaws. I hated it.

But I think I hated Jersey Girl more. I didn't see it in theaters, even though I've enjoyed everything Kevin Smith has done, because I knew I wasn't going to like it. And sure enough, it turned out to be a smarmy story about a jerk (Ben Affleck) raising an obnoxiously precocious kid while George Carlin fails to prove he's a real actor. I don't know why Kevin Smith thought he could do Heartwarming Family Comedy, but he was wrong. Yeesh. Maybe the problem is that Affleck's character is so irredeemably nasty to everyone including his child. But I didn't like the kid either, so I don't know. I'm not saying he should stick to Jay and Silent Bob (although it looks like that's what happening), but I do think he blew this one pretty badly.

Okay, enough of that. And, yes, I realize many people liked some of the movies I hated. Well, one of them, anyway. Last year, my least favorite movie was Kill Bill Vol 1. These things happen. How about the movies I loved?

Shaun of the Dead was just great. Not only was it a very funny comedy, it was also a good zombie movie. It would almost be a parody of zombie flicks, except that the filmmakers obviously love them some walking dead. So while there are a few spots that point out the logical flaws involved with this sort of movie (shambling zombies aren't that hard to run away from), there are also plenty of loving references to classics of the genre.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra could have been made expressly for me. It's basically just a parody of terrible 1950s science fiction horror movies, and it really shouldn't work. Historically, people who try to make purposely bad cinema don't succeed in being entertaining. But I love every minute of this. Especially the minutes with Animala, who is hilariously sexy.

Another movie that appeared to have been made by people looking at a list of "Things Monty Might Enjoy" was Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Old-timey flying robots, death rays, flying machines -- this movie's got it all! Come to think of it, it's a lot like The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, except that it's trying to be good. And I think it succeeds, too. I don't care that much about the way it was made, but I thought it looked great.

There are a few big movies I didn't see. The things I think someone might be surprised I didn't watch are:

• The Passion of the Christ
• Kill Bill Vol. 2
• Fahrenheit 9/11
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Napoleon Dynamite

I almost saw The Passion of the Christ because it's not subtitled. I love the idea of making a movie in a dead language. However, I don't care that much about the plotline (such as it is), and from what I hear, it's a fairly unpleasant movie-going experience with not many laughs.

I absolutely hated Kill Bill Vol. 1 so I don't see why I should watch the second part. A few people tried to convince me the second movie would make me like the first one, since they're supposedly two halves of one movie. But I figure Tarantino had almost two hours two grab me, and the break between halves just meant I could walk out on the movie without feeling weird.

Fahrenheit 9/11, frankly, sounded too much like propaganda for me. I don't like Michael Moore in the best of times, since I find his movies to be all about him being a jerk to people. And I already know he hates Bush, so why do I want to sit there and watch him shriek at me about it?

Some people claimed that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was the best film of 2004, but nothing I've heard about it sounds all that great. I'm reading this Salon piece right now (seriously, right now, between paragraphs of writing this) and . . . meh. Even the parts that are supposed to be great don't sound that interesting. And it's not that I have anything against Jim Carrey (he's not even in the top five things wrong with Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events) either. It just doesn't look that interesting to me.

A lot of people have told me I should see Napoleon Dynamite, but I have not. This is because I find the commercials insulting. Ha ha ha! Look at the geek! Haw haw haw! Well, as it happens, I do not find geeks inherently amusing. And I do not find insulting stereotypes of them hilarious either. Incidentally, this is the same reason I've never watched "Freaks and Geeks" I'm told on very good authority that it's a great show, but I find its use of geek stereotypes to be extremely off-putting.

Okay, that's all.