LAST YEAR'S BEST
Forget Mike and Mel, 2004 was a pretty good year for movies anyway
By Andy Klein
Though I sometimes betray various symptoms of Critic's Syndrome - cynicism, worldweariness, that sort of thing - I liked a surprising number of films this past year. By a rough count, I saw 258 films ... which should help explain the symptoms. For the record, that includes everything I wrote about in CityBeat or spoke about on KPCC's Film Week and KCET's Life and Times, plus a bunch of titles not actually released but seen at places like the American Cinematheque, UCLA, AFI Fest, and the Los Angeles Film Festival.
For the fifth year running, I started with a list of about 25 contenders for my Top 10. As always, this list continues to be in constant flux: It has been arbitrarily frozen in this version to appease my corporate masters. But many of the films in my "bubbling under" list have been bouncing on and off the Top 10 during the compilation process; and, whereas most years I present my choices in order, this year I'm going to go the alphabetical route, so as to avoid driving my editors crazy with second thoughts.
As noted every year: While 258 is, let's face it, a shitload of films, once again it has been impossible to see every obviously significant film released in 2004, let alone every film. So if I have overlooked your favorite, give me the benefit of the doubt and assume I simply haven't caught up with it yet.
Also: I'm going to cheat, with two double entries and a pair of films taken out of competition for similar reasons. These two films were difficult to assess, for reasons above, beyond, and behind the screen. It is not coincidence that they came to be regarded as The Big Blue-State Movie and The Big Red-State Movie.
I loved Fahrenheit 9/11, but it's telling that I can't bring myself to watch it now: It is too inextricably bound up with real-world events, and real-world events are too intolerably depressing. My extremely positive reaction reflected, in part, its function as an optimistic rallying cry. Who wants to relisten to the coach's halftime pep talk after the game is lost? A few years down the road, it will be easier to assess it strictly on its filmmaking qualities, and it may prove a clear masterpiece. But, until then, with all apologies to Michael Moore, I'm pulling him out of the running.
The other such film, of course, is Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Your reaction to art always reflects in some way what you bring into the theater: your personality, knowledge, and life experiences. This is true with every movie from Citizen Kane on down to Stroker Ace, but, man oh man, is it ever true with The Passion of the Christ. Not being a Christian by upbringing or belief, what I saw was grueling, repetitive violence without catharsis or uplift. But I also understand why believers would see something very different.
Whereas Moore wanted to preach to a demographic beyond the choir, Gibson seems to have had no interest in appealing to non-devout viewers. This could be seen as a major aesthetic flaw or as a sensitive reluctance to proselytize. The debate over the film's possible anti-Semitism is still touchy; subsequent research - Gibson's last-minute press screenings made it difficult to do much research for initial reviews - has made it seem more anti-Semitic (even if unintentionally) than I originally believed.
So, with all apologies to Mel, another film is pulled out of competition.
The mention of anti-Semitism brings to mind the worst film of the year - Christmas with the Kranks. For quite a while, I had thought Catherine Breillat's vile Anatomy of Hell couldn't be unseated from my list's bottom spot, but then Joe Roth toodled along with something so offensive that its casual, implied anti-Semitism looked good in comparison to the rest of its subtext. It is worth noting Sony's strategy, which suggests emulation of Gibson's hugely successful campaign for The Passion: All the quotes in the ads are from Christian media. Were I a Christian, I'd consider it insulting to be the target audience for this most unfunny comedy.
Enough dawdling. Below, in alphabetical order, is the list.
Bad Education. Pedro Almodóvar slips in and out of several layers of reality and fiction in this narratively complex tale of a film director revisiting his youth (sort of).
The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi. Takeshi Kitano revives the character of the itinerant, blind swordsman/masseur/ gambler made famous by Shintaro Katsu, in a series of 26 films from 1962 to 1989.
Gozu. A strangely innocent yakuza henchman confronts his suppressed sexual anxieties in this increasingly grotesque thriller/comedy from the absurdly prolific Takashi Miike.
House of Flying Daggers and Hero. Okay, I'm cheating, but Zhang Yimou released two amazing martial-arts films this year. (Miramax had held up Hero for almost two years.) I have a slight preference for the unbridled romanticism of House of Flying Daggers, but Hero, however coldhearted, wins for the sheer beauty of cinematographer Christopher Doyle's images.
The Incredibles. Writer-director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant) and Pixar (Finding Nemo) both come through again with this very funny chronicle of a family of superheroes who, after years in a boring, middle-class lifestyle, must come out of retirement to battle a new villain.
I Heart Huckabees. The latest film from writer-director David O. Russell (Three Kings, Flirting with Disaster) is just your standard-issue metaphysical detective romantic farce cult-movie-like ... thing. Some may find it too offbeat to deal with, but it's so bracingly off-the-charts that it's worth the effort. It's confusing ... but in an interesting way.
Kill Bill Vol. 2. This second installment of Quentin Tarantino's homage to every single thing he saw in the '70s is at once totally of a piece with its predecessor and totally different. If the two volumes had been released in the same year, I would have taken them as one film ... which almost certainly would have been my clear Number One. But, taken on its own, Vol. 2 must be satisfied with an unranked spot.
Million Dollar Baby. Clint Eastwood not only stars in this grim boxing tale, but produced, directed, and wrote the score. It's his leanest, most controlled film since Unforgiven and maybe since forever.
The Saddest Music in the World and Cowards Bend the Knee. The former is another sui generis film - a musical, no less - from crazed, brilliant Winnipegian Guy Maddin (Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary). It may be his most accessible, while Cowards - which only played festivals, but is due out in a few months - is ... well ... strange.
A Very Long Engagement. The latest from Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, Amélie) has been called "Amélie Goes to War," which is fair enough. All of Jeunet's whimsical trademarks are here, yet he never lets them sugarcoat the horrors of World War I.
Bubbling right beneath those are the following titles that have at different times resided in my top 10: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Father and Son, Shrek 2, Before Sunset, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Collateral, Postmen in the Mountains, The Aviator, The Five Obstructions, and Team America: World Police.Published: 01/06/2005
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