29 Aralık 2004 Çarşamba

Ward's Best and Worst Movies of 2004

All our talk previously about “best of” lists and so on inspired me to go ahead and put my own list of the best and worst movies of the past year. The lists aren’t in a final order because some of them are too close. Leave thoughts in the comment section. I'm not saying that everyone should run out and see these movies, just that I think they are good.



Best



LOTR: Return of the King - Great movie, regardless of what some fans with too much time on their hands might say. Visually stunning and enveloping in the story.



Bourne Supremacy – Managing to actually make Matt Damon appear intelligent deserves credit where it’s due. The movie is fast paced and keeps the story moving. On occasion, the dialogue gets cheesy but overall it is well written and well acted.



The Last Samurai – A great movie with a view. The story telling avoids the clichés of Dances with Wolves and yet still makes the point it’s aiming for. What could have been a “white man = bad” flick instead choose to focus on the problems that faced a nation in change, reflecting that people are people and there is no simple answer to the world’s problems. And I don’t even like Tom Cruise…



Collateral – Which makes it even more crazy that he shows up in two of my top movies. This movie took some flak for its “out there” premise. But this movie truly kept my pulse raised just a little bit. And that’s a rare thing these days. Cruise is as good as I’ve ever seen him and even Foxx carries his part with strength.



Spiderman 2 – Certainly a solid movie and a great story. The classic nerd-turned-hero that touches our hearts. We all know the deal. The technical and visual aspects of this movie are actually better than the story. This movie was OVER RATED. But it was still one of the best movies of the year.



Team America: World Police – I’m sure I’ll take some questioning for this one. But that’s okay. It’s not a great movie but it sure knows how to make a point. For relentless and brutal honesty mixed with biting humor, Team America stays as one of the top movies of the year.



The Passion of the Christ – For showing us that the story of Christ doesn’t have to be a low budget piece of crap, Mel deserves our praise. The movie is gritty, unflinching, and pulls no punches to make it’s case. Andrew Sullivan called it “pornographic.” I wonder if he would have been so sassy to the Romans?



Kill Bill – Even though one of the volumes came out last year, I will consider the entire work as a movie which was finished in ’04. Part 1 was violent and mesmerizing. Part 2 was touching and compelling. Together, they make a great story that is as solid as any in 2004.







Worst



Van Helsing – What a terrible piece of garbage. This movie was a disappointment in every possible way. The story was awful, the writing was wretched, and the acting was even worse. When the end came, I didn’t even care about the death. At least I knew it meant the movie was almost over.



Day After Tomorrow – Flat characters that no one could care about. Implausible story elements thrown together to create an orgy of weather related catastrophes. Open mockery of a President of the United States. Bad writing, bad acting, bad premise. Bad.



The Village – Zzzzzz…Zzzzz…Oh! Sorry about that. Let’s see…M. Night. That must mean that there’s a twist coming. Wait…Wait…Wait…What? That’s the twist? I want my money back!



Catwoman - Ha ha ha.



Ocean’s Twelve – This one was shocking. It should have been good. The first one was really enjoyable. But this sequel had no imagination and seemed to have no plot either. It seemed as if everyone was along for the paycheck.



Secret Window – We’ve seen this before just done a little differently. Johnny Depp does a good job with the character but it’s so clichéd on the part of King that it lacked any real shock. To be fair, maybe I saw it coming because I’ve read a lot of King before. It’s certainly not that I was so smart to get it, it wasn’t that hard.



Manchurian Candidate – More political fear and lies pretending to be entertainment. We all get it, Republicans are evil monsters with two heads who eat babies and oppress the poor by forcing them to work in slave labor and who want to take over the world to build our vast empire. Now, can we move on to something new?

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