Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind ---Sometimes a movie works to confuse you, but after a while you lose interest and don't care what the answers are. ESSM draws you into a world that you've never been to before and makes you want to discover where you're going. This was the best fictional movie of the year. I was sucked in and loved the combination of a dreamlike state and the real world. Jim Carrey is tremendous as a heartbroken man looking to erase all the memories of a relationship gone wrong. You feel his pain as he first wants to wash it away and then struggles to keep those memories when they become entangled with the good thoughts.
This movie shows the true highs and lows of love that you rarely see on screen. Kate Winslet, who I usually do not like, was incredible here as the free spirited girl who he loves desperately but doesn't fully trust. She can be sweet or a nasty piece of work, but as the movie unfolds backwards you see where the nastiness comes from. The side stories involving the people doing the brain cleansing are just as interesting. Awards are rendered virtually meaningless to me, when movies like this are jilted out of Oscars or even nominations.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 ---Michael Moore may not share your political viewpoints, but he sure knows how to make an entertaining film. Bowling at Columbine was a brilliant, funny, heartbreaking documentary and this film was an equally great follow up. He throws a lot of info at you and a lot of what if's, which the Republicans try to ridicule as outlandish. Some of the questions are regarding the Bushes unseemly relationship with the Saudis (the people most involved in 9/11). But they are questions that deserve some attention and are getting none from the traditional media. In the film, when the Secret Service makes a special trip to the Saudi Arabian embassy to protect it from Michael and his cameras, you realize that he's onto something here. My taxes are paying for the protection of our enemies? But my favorite part is when he asks several Congressmen to talk their kids into going into the military. Not one member has a child in the service and yet they willingly send other people's children to do the fighting. If it weren't for a few reporting errors, I would call this my favorite movie of the year.
Incredibles, The --Pixar knocks another one out of the park. After slipping with Finding Nemo they come back with this very funny, very exciting, CGI-animated tribute to superheroes. My favorite character is the little boy, Dash, who runs faster than The Flash. I really could relate to him, because what little boy would not like to have a superpower? I loved how The Incredibles were in real mortal danger (despite what the namby-pamby Newsweek critic wrote). And if you are going to have a mid-life crisis, potbellied former superhero, who better to play him than voice-weary "Coach" Craig T. Nelson. Another aspect that I loved is that Holly Hunter's mother character has the same twisted-up mouth when she speaks as she does in real life.
Aviator, The ---Goodfellas is Martin Scorsese's best. A big movie told in a small way. But Aviator is a big movie told in a big way, the first time Martin has been able to get his hands around such a project and bring it on home. He does it here with grace. The scenes recreating Howard Hughes' 1920's airplane movies are great, as are the flying lessons for Katherine Hepburn and the spectacular crash in Beverly Hills. Martin brought his A Game here and got wonderful performances out of all of his stars. Leo does a great Texas accent and plays obsessive compulsive disorder beautifully, especially in the beginning when it's just a subtle part of his character. Cate Blanchett's Katherine Hepburn is so perfect she deserves any award she gets. Alan Alda makes a great comeback as a Congressman deep in Pan-Am's pockets. I loved this movie and if it won Best Picture I'd have no problem with it.
MILLION DOLLAR BABY ---The funny thing about a Clint Eastwood movie these days, is that unlike Bill Murray, you still get the same style of film from him that his fans have always loved, but they just have better scripts. Think of Dirty Harry's The Enforcer. Crusted hard veteran is forced to team up with a little Irish firebrand (Tyne Daly), who is determined to show she can keep up with the vet and he grows a grudging respect and a non-sexual love for this woman. Take away the police story and replace guns with boxing gloves and you have Million Dollar Baby. Eastwood is Eastwood here, except a little more moist-eyed and the firebrand is Hillary Swank as Maggie Fitzgerald. Maggie wants to be a female boxer and a good one, and wants Frank's help. She gets it thanks to the always great Morgan Freeman. I loved the fight scenes, because they show how ferocity, determination and great training can overcome speed and youth. Maggie is like an older, white trash Mike Tyson. The ending comes out of left field, but is appropriate.
BEFORE SUNSET ---Sequel to one of my favorite romantics films of all time, Before Sunrise, is very good in its own right and has the added benefit of real time. Meeting in Paris, the characters have 90 minutes to talk, before a flight leaves for New York and the movie watches them the whole way. These two are meant to be together. Funny and incredibly touching.
SPARTAN ---Val Kilmer is the most underrated actor of his generation. (Thanks to The Practice/Boston Legal, James Spader is no longer underrated.) Here is one movie that slipped way under the radar, but is a phenomenal piece of work. Written and directed by the always great David Mamet, Kilmer plays a CIA assassin out to find the daughter of a mysterious government employee (the president?). He gets himself in deep and finds he's part of a bigger conspiracy. I reveal nothing, but tell you to just sit back and watch as he uses any means necessary to accomplish his goal. When he interrogates one escaping suspect the guy screams "you broke my arm." "No, I didn't." The guy lies to him, then crack, "Now I broke your arm."
Shrek 2 ---It starts off slow and doesn't produce too many laughs in the first half, but the second half makes it the funniest movie of the year. I enjoyed the second half more than the entire first Shrek movie. And the key ingredient to this sequel was Antonio Banderas' cat assassin--Puss-In Boots.
MAN ON FIRE --In our post-9/11 world we start to feel better knowing that there are trained assassins out there willing to go the extra mile to keep us safe. Like Spartan, Man on Fire is about those kind of men. Denzel Washington hires himself out to protect a little girl from being kidnapped in the ever dangerous Latin America. Kidnapping rich relatives for profit has become a big industry down there and adorable little Dakota Fanning is a ripe target. When she does get snatched and the money trade off goes awry, Denzel is determined to make the kidnappers pay. That Denzel starts off the movie as an alcoholic with suicidal tendencies because of the things he's done, makes the transformation to his old self that much more heavy.
MARIA FULL OF GRACE ---Sometimes you watch a movie about a subject you know very little about. The heroin mule trade (swallowing condoms of heroin to get past the border guards) is one of those subjects. I assumed these people sucked down 10 or so, not 50+. If just one condom has a leak you digest all that heroin and die. You might say good for them, but when you think about it, as this movie forces you to do: How desperate do you have to be to actually take this chance? Your choices: death, prison or a few thousand dollars to help your family in dirt poor Colombia. This movie concerns itself with the characters muling the drugs and not those the drugs will eventually poison, but it does have one moral center in the disapproving sister of one of the mules. After seeing the conditions these girls come from it's a wonder any of them ever leave the U.S.
Honorable Mentions:
Shaun of the Dead --A comical tribute to zombie movies, this one has plenty of in-jokes, but is not an Airplane/Scary Movie type of comedy. This film reimagines a zombie invasion in a plain English world and how real people would handle the situation, which means to say not well at all. When these people get a gun they can't shoot straight and when stressful times come they can't think straight. Just like the rest of us. I love how the pub is the answer to all their questions. The fat "flatmate" is the best.
DAWN OF THE DEAD ---Just like the sequel, the remake is becoming less of a dirty word thanks to great ones like this. A good cast of actors rather than action heroes and a tight script makes this retelling of the classic zombie film a worthy successor. And I love that the zombies run fast. It bothers the hell out of one of my friends, but if you can suspend your imagination enough to allow the dead to walk why can't they run?
SUPER SIZE ME ---The year of the entertaining documentary. (Bush's Brain and Fog of War were other notables.) This guy brings fast food down to its knees and managed to have Super-sized meals wiped off McDonald's menus. He ate McDonald's every day for 30 days, breakfast, lunch and dinner and ended up with a sick liver and other health problems. If he drank like a fish he couldn't have damaged his liver as quickly as his high fat diet did. Granted he was a bit of a lightweight to start out. Only weighing 185 and being 6 feet tall. He throws up after his third day on this diet, which made me laugh very hard. But his point was made about the fast-food industrial complex that is poisoning our kids and making us all unhealthy. Oddly, I have to admit that after watching this movie, I got an incredible craving for McDonald's and went and got a Big Mac. Happened to my friend Paul, too. And neither of us are McDonald's fans. LOL
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS ---Sports movies have gotten much better in the last 20 years. Few have been as a detail-honest as this one. The story of a real Texas high school football team back in 1988, it stars Billy Bob Thornton as the coach of the team that was expected to win the State title and lost its star running back in the first game. My friend Paul was a high school football coach for a number of years and loved its authenticity. It almost makes me want to read the book, but let's not get crazy. :))
SIDEWAYS ---Very funny at times and very downbeat at times. As the weeks goes by I appreciate it, but realize how overhyped it was. I just finished watching Midnight Run, which is as good a road trip comedy as you'll ever see and that was both funny and poignant, but kept it all moving nicely. Something Sideways had a problem doing. Three weeks ago this movie would have made my Top 10, but after seeing Million Dollar Baby and Maria Full of Grace it fell precipitously.
Hero ---Jet Li is not much of an actor, but what he brings in physical skills to a role can never be diminished. I love Jackie Chan, but Jet Li is not human with his contortionist moves. This movie employs too much Crouching Tiger fly-away fighting, but if viewed as pure art it works beautifully. I've never seen a movie use such a rich array of colors. The red autumn leaves flying around during one fighting scene has to be experienced in a theater or a very large screen TV. This movie is a treat for the eyes.
POLAR EXPRESS, THE ---Like Hero another feast for the eyes. The story is very nice and the trip to the North Pole is full of wonder and excitement, but their is a distance in this film that kind of leaves you cold. That one little thing that was missing, could have turned this film into a classic. It might still be, but I saw it twice and didn't have that same feeling I had after The Incredibles or especially Elf.
TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE ---South Park boys hit a bases-clearing double. Best puppet movie I've ever seen. Although I don't know what number 2 is. When it's funny it's very very funny, but there are some dry moments. The attack on celebrities for being anti-American is a bit right-wingish for me, but they do deserve to be smacked for their pomposity. "I'm Matt Damon."
Spiderman 2 ---Did the Elevated train running through Manhattan bother you? I kept saying to myself, it's Queens Blvd., it's Queens Blvd., but Queens Blvd. doesn't have tall buildings like that and Manhattan doesn't have El trains. I'm sorry, but such an exciting moment in a movie should not be undone by such a suspension of disbelief. Maybe if you've never been to New York you'd love the scene, but for New Yorkers it had to give you major pause. And could someone buy Kirsten Dunst a buffet meal at Sizzler's? Mary Jane is supposed to be voluptuous not anorexic. The Aunt was great though.
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN ---Wow, the first really good Harry Potter movie. Ever major character in Harry Potter movies are now played by the best English actors around. Add Gary Sinise to the fold as the chief villain and Emma Thompson as the wacky palmreader. I loved the second view of life in this film. How what we perceive may not actually be what's happening. Too bad people can't experience this in real life.
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, THE ---A superior remake to the original. Denzel Washington plays Frank Sinatra's part of a returning soldier (from the Gulf War), who experiences terrible dreams and thinks he may have been brainwashed. Denzel is believable in this part whereas little Frank looked like a child in his military uniform. The use of a CNN/Fox News Network style ticker to feed us BS, while the real events are playing out was brilliant. Silence of the Lambs' Jonathan Demme makes a big comeback after The Truth About Charlie. This movie scores major points for resurrecting the classic Kinks song, Better Things.
Passion OF THE CHRIST, The ---I saw it about a year ago and there are scenes that still creep into my mind from time to time. Going to church and seeing Christ on the cross I'm sure helps, but it's not just then. It's pain. A heel spur, a sore back, a sunburn, some other ailment that comes up and I flash back to Jesus being whipped or worse yet, getting his arm pulled out of its socket to reach the other side of the cross. For all its faults, Mel made a movie that stays with you and even though the script was something you'd hear on classroom educational TV, you can't diminish the horror of the images. Has anyone made a scarier manifestation of the devil than Mel does in this film? And I think the movie loses some of its power by not being in English. If it was in English, I think it would be less foreign and you couldn't distance yourself the way you try to here. Just a thought.
The Freditor
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