fflo | Movies of 2004

Movies of 2004

And now.... Lisa's Favorite Movies of 2004:

I ♥ [Heart] Huckabees
Salmer fra kjøkkenet (Kitchen Stories)
Coffee and Cigarettes

Runners-up
Kinsey
Sideways
The Incredibles

Pretty darned good
Shrek 2
School of Rock
The Motorcycle Diaries
Anchorman
Intimate Strangers
A Dirty Shame

Better than you'd probably expect
The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
Starsky & Hutch
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Solid & successful at what they set out to do
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Tokyo Godfathers
Fahrenheit 9/11
Control Room
Garden State
The Corporation

Not a waste of money
Napoleon Dynamite
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism

Good in the peripheral story, but the main conceit bad(ly done)
Touch of Pink

Disappointing
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Mean Girls
Ray

Eh
Ocean's Twelve
The Stepford Wives (2004)
Team America: World Police

Offensive beyond redemption
Supersize Me

Not gonna see it, cuz Vol. I was offensive beyond redemption
Kill Bill, Vol. II (and I loved Pulp Fiction)

Complete crap (sorry, Cheryl)
My Baby's Daddy

still need to see
Friday Night Lights
Melinda and Melinda
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Finding Neverland
Spider-Man 2
The Aviator
Million Dollar Baby
Los Angeles Plays Itself
The Saddest Music in the World
A mi madre le gustan las mujeres (My Mother Likes Women)

I didn't keep track of what I took in as the year went by; I hope to do that this year. [List edited somewhat as I recall other films from the year.] [Anybody know of a round-up list of foreign/art/indie films of the year?]

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I saw The Aviator on Saturday. It was good but too long.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is just lovely.

What did you find offensive about Super-Size Me?

I agree with your rating for Fahrenheit 9/11. (Well, I agree with your ratings for a lot of these, actually, but that one stands out.) I thought it was fine but nowhere near as successful or insightful as Bowling for Columbine. I still have to see Napoleon Dynamite, as most of my friends keep reminding me... And I have to see I Heart Huckabees too, since everyone at MR seems to love it so.

I'd be happy to loan you Eternal Sunshine if you'd like. Let me know and I'll bring it in tomorrow. That one is my favorite movie of the year, followed closely by The Saddest Music in the World, Sideways, and probably The Incredibles.

I'd love to borrow Eternal Sunshine---I've been on the waiting list for it at the library for weeks now. Adding The Saddest Music to my list of to-sees (and editing now to include some foreign/art films I'm remembering that weren't on the lists I looked over for what was in 2004).

Supersize Me was offensive to me in two main ways: (1) unquestioningly reflecting and perpetuating cultural fatphobia (often in ways that get my goat) and (2) lousy experimental conditions. And mediocre filmmaking in other ways, too, but that's not offensive, just mediocre.

The cheap practice of illustrating the "epidemic" of fat with shots of decapitated pseudo-anonymous fat bodies on the streets is just one pet peeve of my body size political self the guy fell into (repeatedly). Shorthand referencing the horrors of people being fat was something I'd pretty much expected, but I'd hoped his stabs at the cultural context of the industry would go more in the direction of mass corporate profits and disregard for nutrition/workers, and CLASS. It's crazy not to get seriously into class issues in a movie about cheap fast food's effects on people. It's not as if he didn't have time. Just cutting the neck-down fat folks & tedious voiceover, and some of the ego-indulgent stuff, would've cut quite a few minutes.

The lousy experiment thing also seemed to waste the opportunity to prove the point about nutrition. The way he ordered huge honkin' double quarter pounder meals every time out, and otherwise made the experience worse than it might have been, seemed to spoil the impressiveness of his resulting decline in health. I mean, who eats like that at McDonald's, especially regularly? Some people, surely, but not most, by far. Plus he used to exercise quite a bit, but for the course of the experiment he quit completely. That alone would cause major changes to his physiognomy, and it's such a lack of respect for any pseudo-scientific control that the experiment ends up being a joke. (Not that that mattered to most of the audience, but it did to me.)

I really did want to see fast food skewered. But his movie was all over the place. Good idea, badly executed. And it didn't help that he personally reminded me of wife-beating rednecks I have known.

Yeah, the stock footage of the headless fat people got on my nerves a little as well, to be honest. It's such a local-news cheap trick. But that aside, I really liked it, even though I totally understand all your points.

Personally, I'm one of the ones for whom the lack of scientific control with regard to the experiment was kind of beside the point. From my perspective, it was supposed to function as more of a cinematic hook than as an unimpeachable scientific analysis of fast food's nutritional horrors. It's the lowest of lowest-common-denominator gimmicks- the fact that you're sitting and watching a guy intentionally destroy his own body makes the film as much influenced by Jackass as by Fast Food Nation- but I think he effectively used that to draw people in so he could then deliver his screed on the evils of fast food corporations to them in a palatable form. To my mind, it's a clever trick, but I can understand why it bugged you. Particularly if you didn't think the film was especially well made to begin with.

Though didn't he say that he was trying to emulate the entire approach to health of the "average" American, as far as the lack of exercise went? It's been awhile since I've seen it. I thought I recalled him making a number of disclaimers to that effect, but I might be wrong... Not that you necessarily have to accept it, disclaimer or no disclaimer. (I prefer disclaimer, for obvious reasons.) :)

As far as the class issue is concerned, I agree that the film would've benefitted from that, but I suspect Morgan would have found himself in over his head if he attempted to take it on. It's such a thorny issue, and just judging from the way the rest of the film was presented, I don't think he could've done it justice. His touch is too light to handle something like that, I think. Again, though, I think you're justified in arguing that he shouldn't have made the film in the first place if he was unprepared to handle bigger issues related to his topic. And on top of it all, if you find him irksome to begin with, he's certainly not going to win you over. All good points. I just reacted to it completely differently.

I'll try to remember to bring Eternal Sunshine in tomorrow. I've got Saddest Music too, but I haven't gotten all the way through the features and everything on that one yet. Maybe remind me in a couple weeks and I'll bring it in?

You have a good point about the experiment/premise just being the hook, and the joy of watching a train wreck being a big part of the appeal. And he does come off a jackass, in the general sense as well as the Jackass one! But, yeah, I suppose that gripe is pretty pet-peevey.

As far as fat activism and body size acceptance issues, the political allies of those of us in that cause are few and far between, even among intelligent lefty types, even among feminists, etc., so it's a bit much to ask him to have enlightenment there, or even to question the (very) dominant culture regarding the demonization of fat. His touch was both too light and too ploddingly hamfisted heavy for that finer point. The stuff about fast food in the school systems I did appreciate, I'll admit. And class, to me, is not so much thorny (though of course it is) as it is the great forbidden topic in American culture, so what were the chances he'd address that elephant in our collective living room?

You're a much savvier critic than he is a filmmaker, though. I hate to see him scoring with Chris Willie W^ms.

Heh. I appreciate the compliment, and I'd never argue that he's in the same documentarian class as, say, Errol Morris or even Michael Moore. I just thought it was a movie that sort of aimed low and hit its target as a result. Though you're totally right- it would have been nice to at least have a nod toward the acceptance of one's body size. It certainly wouldn't have stepped on his point any to point out that you don't have to be a toothpick to be healthy or attractive, or to point out that not all fat people are lazy, gluttons.

I wonder if we'll ever see a mainstream documentary on class in America that actually does justice to the topic. It reminds me of this bit from an interview with Berkeley Breathed from The Onion, regarding racial issues: "I can explain why a white boy like myself didn't write about race: You can't. You couldn't then. You can't now. Don't touch it. Run. Hide. Smile and say you love everybody equally, and don't make any jokes as you back out of the room. Race and humor only work in a comedy club with exclusively black comedians. That's it. There isn't a shade of a chance for anything resembling a real discussion about race occurring publicly in this country for another... well, ever. Tirades, yes. Conversations that don't become tirades after the first sentence spoken? No. Clinton... started tiptoeing down the path. Funny how we never heard about the big 'National Discussion On Race' again. Once-bitten."

That's a bit more cynical than I'd like to be about it, but I think he does get to the heart of the problem. You obviously can't touch on class without touching on race, and that's too hot an issue for most people to touch, because it instantly gets people's defenses up. From all sides. And there's no way to have a dialogue that way. It's really sad and frustrating, and I wonder if there even exists a way to overcome that...

Yeah, I'm with you on the frustration---and on race being the other great unmentionable. Though I think both matters make it into intelligent conversation in certain circles, albeit in a sometimes fraught way. Maybe the best conversation I've seen about them is in print, too.

Several on your list I'd like to see. Several I'll avoid, as well (anything with Will Farrell--yuck!). Definitely want to see Kinsey, F 9/11 and The Incredibles. Spiderman 2 was okay. Have you seen Bubba Ho-Tep yet? Can't remember if that was 2004 or 2003. Fabulous!

Just can't abide Will Ferrell, hunh? I can see that. He has a distinctive schtick, and it's a matter of taste. Sometimes he's too him for me, too. I think I first liked him in Elf.

Never saw Elf. His cheerleader bit on SNL did him in for me.

I liked the cheerleaders (to a point). Got a little weary of the sleezy hottub guy, and his going for the potbelly-over-underpants laugh a time or two too many.

Bad news (?): Will's in the new Woody Allen.

Yeah, I heard. I not real happy about it.

Like your new icon, by the way.

ty. i'm going to miss margaret when you stop using miss margaret. (got her autobio, btw)

Oh cool. How is it?

Still at the beginning (slow reader, doncha know). Will let you know.

Lisa, great list

I loved shreck, but thought shreck 2 was bad, not horrible, but not what everyone was saying. I was very disappointed. No one I watched it with hardly laugh and it was more predictable. just not worth it. anyway,

cks

yea! it's cks! when you gonna get an account here, girl??

Yeah, I realized a lot of what I liked about Shrek was in the first one, so I bumped it down from Runner Up to just darned good. And that's still probably residual appreciation of Shrek 1.

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