Every Film I Saw in 2004 Ranked

1. Life Aquatic, Wes Anderson-Didn’t fare as well as some of the other Anderson films at the time, but the theme of enemies and friends and estranged family members overcoming their detachments because of a need to belong is still prevalent in a very touching way and it’s a feast for the eyes.
2. Aviator, Martin Scorsese-Everything about this film feels grandiose in a good way. It’s a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood from a man who’s arguably Classic Hollywood’s most prominent fanboy. The biopic is compelling, the hokey sentiment at the ending works, and I also like the lack of resolution. I went into the film knowing very little about Howard Hughes as well.
3. Sideways, Alexander Payne-The moment in history where Alexander Payne’s neorealist screenwriting style and critical tastes aligned. It’s a tense and funny story that treats its characters with gentleness and understanding.
4. Spanglish, James L Brooks-It’s high ranking with me is affected by the fact that it mirrors my own life story because I had a live-in Spanish-speaking nanny and her daughter stay with us when I was young. But seriously, I don’t understand the hatred for this film. Aside from that, I think it’s a very well-balanced story tonally and cleverly shifts audience loyalties between the neglectful wife, the nice guy husband, and the house interloper.
5. Anchorman, Adam McKay-My first bit of education that making a good comedy can entail the same degree of artistic difficulty as a good drama. The layers of absurdism, the strength of the characters, the timing of the jokes, everything clicked to the point that I was literally laughing throughout at least 80 to 90% of the film’s running time.
6. Ray, Taylor Hackford-The debate over whether to put Ray or Finding Neverland first was a tough one. Ray was a bit more of a known story, whereas Finding Neverland found a lot of nuance in the unknown. Ray was downright inspiring though and the redemption at the end (while not a complete redemption at all) was tear jerking. I remember leaving the theater thinking, “OK, I am not gonna let my disability hold me back.” The cast of characters rotated so often, the film felt like a series of vignettes but there was enough centrality to hold it all together.
7. Finding Neverland, Marc Forster-The film appeared a little stuffy but the theme of defining your own family resonated very well and, like, Ray, the film was quite a tear jerker.
8. Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore-Whether you agree with the politics or not, Michael Moore has really broken open the mold of a stale genre. Before Michael Moore, I wasn’t a fan of the genre at all: Talking heads, newsreel footage, self-satisfying photography. No thanks, I’ll go read a book.
9. Manchurian Candidate, Jonathan Demme-Yes, it’s a remake but the story’s one of my favorite of all time so I don’t mind seeing it again, it’s transported very appropriately to a new setting, it plays well like a thriller, and Denzel, Liev and Meryl are fantastic reinterpretations.
10. Kinsey, Bill Condon-A very interesting way to tell a story that’s largely about collecting data (even if it’s about very sexy data). The central conflict is about a scientist’s struggle to present a truth in the face of moral naysayers but it nicely meanders in talking about the man’s detachment from emotional love and his complexities. In delving into side characters, it’s an early template for so many of the great serialized shows (Dexter, Transparent, House of Cards, Orphan Black, Masters of Sex) that start with a subject and work their way out.
11. I Heart Huckabees, David O Russell-An extremely innovative and resonant form of comedy. The scene of Mark Wahlberg panicking about the state of petroleum in the world while he has a real-world problem right before him in the form of a wife leaving him, spoke to me so much as someone in my head. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scratch my head, but it was really something else.
12. Mean Girls, Mark Waters-The film that launched Tina Fey into the stratosphere still holds up very well as a quintessential teen movie. The dialogue is sharp, edgy and relatable to anyone who’s felt like an outsider in their adolescence. It also captures very well how all those cliques and aliiances that you’re obsessed with in high school seem to dissolve at some point and you realize what’s ultimately important.
13. Dodgeball, Rawson Marshall Thurber-Like Anchorman, this is a film that knows where to pin its jokes for maximum effect. It’s a brilliant sports parody, pure unadulterated fun and encapsulates Vince Vaughn’s screen persona better than any other film.
14. National Treasure, John Turteltaub-I probably would’ve ranked this more in the middle of the pack back in 2004, but it’s a more memorable film down the road and one I would rewatch in a heart beat. The premise is absurd but the marriage of history and adventure is done in a much tighter way than Da Vinci Code and it skates by on a sense of fun the whole way.
15. Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock-Morgan Spurlock’s grotesque piece of performance art is the only known example besides Michael Moore I’ve seen of a documentary breaking the mold and showing something you couldn’t get out of reading a book on the same topic.
16. Spiderman 2, Sam Raimi-Back in the day, this film got amazing reviews and topped (whatever would have been the equivalent back then of) the Rotten Tomatoes chart, and was even included in AFI’s ballot for the 100 Greatest Films of All Time. I’ve never been too keen on the Spiderman universe because the characters feel so rigidly drawn to archetypes (James Franco is the best friend but why? Can Kirsten Dunst be any more Girl Next Door?), but the story takes the hero into new territory, the special effects are very impressive and story relevant, and there’s a grandiosity to the whole film.
17. Silver City, John Sayles-A wonderful little satire and ensemble piece about government corruption and a peon in the system (Danny Huston) finding a little piece of political redemption.
18. Shrek 2, Andrew Adamson-Not sure if I loved this cartoon as much as Chadwick Bozeman’s recent SNL character but this was a great movie about how to deal with the aftermath of happily ever after. A thematically mature cartoon is pretty rare. The laughs weren’t AS strong as they could be because they were overly character-reliant and the characters -- an ogre who’s not that bad and a donkey who’s a vehicle for Eddie Murphy humor -- wore themselves out by the end of the first film.
19. Maria Full of Grace, Joshua Marston-I don’t watch foreign films nearly as often as I should because stuff like this does give me a nice insight into another part of the world. It was nice to see a protagonist like Maria here who wasn’t entirely helpless and could advocate for herself.
20. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry-It’s hard to separate the film from the critical love for said film. You know why it’s a great film. I don’t remember it as much. I believe a major distraction of the film was the focus given to the Elijah Wood-Mark Ruffalo-Kirsten Dunst-Tom Wilkinson as a separate B-plot rather than just a framing device. The jumps in time gave me whiplash and not in a good way (“500 Days of Summer’ steps into and out of time more gracefully). But, yes, it has a lot of great stuff in it as well.
21. Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich-It goes up several points based on how well I remember it. Even though it’s extremely implausible, the plot’s not nearly as flimsy as 2012. It fits well with Emmerich’s milieu of large-scale disaster and is a fine ensemble piece. Some of the visual imagery (such as the characters outrunning cold itself or the initial onset of the storm) is indelible.
22. I Robot, Alex Poyras-Like Kinsey, this is an extremely difficult story to adapt so I have to give the film credit for making a coherent story that’s somewhat thought-provoking (what the Asimov intended his work to be) and has a genuine element of mystery. The jaded cop angle was a little strained. There was also a bit too much exposition but it would be hard not to do with source material
23. Terminal, Stephen Spielberg-There were parts that were a little schmaltzy, but it played with some interesting cinematic and spatial space (re-thinking the airport as the setting of a movie rather than a transition point) and I found the film lined with quite a bit of philosophical depth if you consider the airport to be a purgatory of sorts. The film has a nice bit of tension between Stanley Tucci’s character and Hanks. One weakness is that Hanks is a bit Tom Hanksian in a been-there-done-that kind of way which is a shame since he’s based on an actual characterthis tough.
24. Wimbledon, Richard Lorcaine-It’s not a particularly ambitious film, but three things in the film’s favor: 1) A very endearing romcom 2) one of the few sports films dealing with staying in the game past your peak 3) making tennis (an already underrated sport) sexy and exciting through great action shots and the like
25. Welcome to Mooseport, Donald Pietrie-It has a reputation buoyed by its reviews of being bland and vanilla, and to make matters worse, it’s rumored to have scared Gene Hackman into retirement, but I don’t care. To me, the film is a pleasant throwback to the 90s era of wholesome family-friendly comedy. A bit of fish-out-of-water stuff and a nice love story
26. Merchant of Venice, Michael Radford-Hard to judge this super-objectively since I saw this for a literary class on Merchant of Venice and not really for pleasure. Al Pacino deserves accolades for going for broke here and doing Shakespeare. I’d much rather see him do this than a cop or mob member or robber. Visually nice.
27. Around the World in 80 Days, Frank Coraci-When I first saw this, I thought it was a shameful dilution of a great literary work simply to give Jackie Chan a vehicle for his blend of martial arts and children’s comedy. Then, I rewatched it and discovered how marvelously fun and virtuosic a Jackie Chan movie can be. The film’s humor can seem unimpressive at points but it’s consistently filled with the kind of jokes that would delight a 12-year-old and if you meet the material halfway, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to let your inner child out.
28. Troy, Wolfgang Petersen-When I first watched the film in 2004, I felt it was shameful that the film stripped the Iliad of its cultural specificity in favor of a more broad story. Looking at the irritating complexities of Game of Thrones or Westworld or Orphan Black, I don’t necessarily think simplifying a narrative is the worst thing you can do anymore. At the same time, the film loses a little by keeping this a tale only of humans when the source material was a more extravagant opera of Gods and humans on opposite sides of a battle. If you accept that this movie is just a watered-down Brad Pitt vehicle and lower your expectations as such, it’s an easily digestible epic.
29. 50 First Dates, Peter Segal-Not a fan of Adam Sandler’s man child screen persona but he occasionally puts his characters in solid enough plots that they cancel out the weakeness of his presence enough to make a good movie. The only three Adam Sandler films I liked were Mr Deeds, Big Daddy, and this one. Sandler films are juvenile in their jokes but they also are sincerely enveloped with a lot of heart. This is an interesting premise for a love story and it mostly works in spite of how little I like Adam Sandler as an actor.
30. After the Sunset, Brett Ratner-The film strikes just the right playful tone. Pierce Brosnan, who was as heavily associated with Bond as he would ever be, had an odd penchant for playing Bond-like figures in Tailor of Panama, No Escape, Matador, and this. All four characters are what I would describe as sleazy versions of Bond. This one is an interesting role for Brosnan because it’s laced with a playful sense of (very un-Bond-like) homoeroticism between Brosnan and Harrelson while simultaneously trying to aim for a monogamous love story. Like many of Bond’s most famous films, it’s also set in the Caribbean and has a chase scene in the Junkanoo just like Thunderball.
31. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Kerry Conran-My reaction is pretty much entirely neutral. It was pleasant and technologically innovative but the technological innovations were quite distracting.
32. Incredibles, Brad Bird-I just didn’t feel particularly inspired by this. I preferred “Sky High” or the underrated Ben Stiller vehicle “Mystery Men”
33. Taxi, Tim Story-One has to admit the scene of Queen Latifah breaking all laws of traffic (and perhaps physics) to get a passenger to Laguardia in fifteen minutes is pretty solid. And who doesn’t actively fantasize about a taxi driver (or perhaps an Uber) who actually cares about getting you somewhere on time? The premise is thin, the show is inoffensive and fun, and harkens back to the days when Jimmy Fallon didn’t make me want to stab someone. If he was better in films, he might not be imposing his annoying giggly fits on the late night landscape.
34. Stepford Wives, Frank Oz-A remake of a 1975 film starring Nicole Kidman is a burnt-out TV executive whose supportive husband moves her away from the city to a pleasant suburban enclave. This is an attempt at suburban satire that morphs into a Shyamalanesque eerie town mystery. The thru-line between the former and the latter is the peril of conformity but it’s a completely different picture in the second half which invalidates much of the first half’s thematic thrust. First, the film is about a woman learning to relax and open up; than bam!-- they’re all zombies or robots or something. The film does have a twist or two but by then it’s a little too late.
35. Garden State, Zach Braff-It’s an extremely typical coming-of-age story that doesn’t have a lot of forward momentum that is overly filled with quiet spaces. The protagonist has some issues to resolve but he’s so internal and broody, that it’s not translating on screen more than a guy voicing first world problems. Aside from an extremely typical romance with a young lady, who as far as I could tell seemed mentally ill (sorry Natalie Portman, you are an Oscar winner but I couldn’t swallow your interpretation here), basically amounts to a guy trying to decide whether to go off prescription medicine of not. There is one meaningful conversation he has with his dad and when I pulled the quote on IMDB, there was a sense of poetry to that one scene, but everything else was blah.
36. Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess-Napoleon Dynamite has some genuinely sweet moments between its central teenage characters but I don’t find the characters to be particularly iconic. I also don’t think Idaho (from my experiences in the state) deserves this portrayal as the capital of bland weirdness.
37. Catwoman, Pitol-It had some iconically cringe-worthy scenes (the basketball game choreographed by people who don’t know how the sport works) but it was moderately watchable. Not a high compliment, I know.
38. Ocean’s 12, Stephen Soderbergh-On the one hand, the film is crafted by Soderbergh with a genuinely impressive level of slickness that helps remind us why he won a Best Director Oscar in a competitive year. On the other hand, putting all the technical expertise in the world to an ending that basically says f--- you to the audience for caring about the story doesn’t absolve you. It’s also a self-indulgent mess. You think George Clooney and Brad Pitt are egoless actors? Nearly all of their dialogue is self-praise which is even more obnoxious considering that Pitt and Clooney are doing it on a meta-level and think it’s a wonderful use of our time to revel in their smugness.
39. Lady Killers, Joel and Ethan Coen-Part of my extremely low ranking here is high hopes. Like all Coen brothers films the sense of place is very strong and I very much enjoyed Tom Hanks’ acting here. His fast-tacking huckster is a delight and one of the best performances of the year. But no one else in the movie was remotely memorable (this was the second film that Spring I’d seen featuring a character who had IBM and I found it equally unfunny the first time) nor did the group have any discernable sense of banter. The pacing between the heist and the subsequent struggle against their landlady (Irma P Hall) was a bit abrupt which made their doom feel empty in a tragic way. The original felt less ambitious but the symmetry of the character’s success and demise made for an effective moral tone poem in its simplicity.
40. The Whole Ten Yards, John Lynn-I remember almost nothing about this film and what’s even worse news for this film’s chances of implanting itself into my memory 14 years later: I remember almost nothing about the original except that it features Amanda Peete naked and that Bruce Willis subverts the mold of a hitman by also being humorous and affable. When has Bruce Willis not been affable? I don’t even remember the decision that led to me thinking I want to put myself through a forgettable two hours.
41. 13 Going on 30, Gary Winick-I don’t believe in using the word chick flick because a movie with a female-centric character or a romance can always be appealing if made well. This is not one of those movies. The story, a gender switch on “Big” starring Jennifer Garner, is short on plot movement and overindulgent in a bath of cutesiness (makeover scenes, karaoke-filled sleepovers) that’s carried entirely on the back of Garner’s gifts for physical comedy. Garner is on screen nearly 100% of the time which gives the added disadvantage of denying us any narrative-breaking B story or plot meander.
42. Along Came Polly, Jon Hamberg-Philip Seymour Hoffman, you’re so much better than this. Why did you think channeling Jack Black was a good idea here? The film has little chemistry and the tension before the two get together was skipped which made me care less about these two. Also, could they think of nothing more sophisticated for a character trait than IBS?

Disobedience (2018) Review

Rachel Weisz stars as a Rabbi's daughter returning to an Orthodox Jewish community that's shunned her because she didn't want to adopt their ways. This is a common problem in Orthodox communities when people choose a different belief system than the one they were raised with. It presents a myriad of challenges to navigate and this film portrays it with the utmost delicacy.

The film has a brilliant pseudo-horror vibe with the voyeuristic looks that her disapproving peers inflict upon her with as she sits with them at dinner or walks through the streets alongside them. 

The film is advertised as a film about a lesbian relationship, but it's really a film about free will because being in a pre-marital sexual relationship, dating a secular jew, even having secular Jews in your friend circle or getting an education all lead to the same end result of shunning anyways. 

Perhaps it's my experience in this type of community, but the film is beautiful, spot-on, tense, sexy , and treats each of the three leads (Rachel McAdams and Allesandro Nivola) and their character arcs with a great sense of respect.

Orange is the New Black Season 5 (aka the one where they riot)

I was hesitant to watch the fifth season (AKA the one with the prison riot) of Orange is the New Black because I was worried about the way the show’s thematic messages were being read by a critical sphere that I’ve made no secret in knowing I have issues with. To review, the show’s fourth season ends with the cruel reign of MCC culminating in a revolt. Poussey Washington, one of the show’s many breakout characters, is accidentally killed by one of Litchfield’s greenest  officers, Bailey Baxter, in the ensuing chaos. The ideas being floated around in response to this episode – that Baxter was representative of the recent wave of newsworthy police brutality against the black population or that death of Washington was analogous to some sort of in-show racism – seemed antithetical to the spirit of the show itself. 

Through its first four seasons, OitNB has been an extremely illuminating show that teaches empathy for people at all ranks of society. Villains and heroes emerge from every rank and position, regardless of race or sexual orientation and regardless of whether one is a correctional officer or prisoner (although we find ourselves having a surprising amount of sympathy for the prisoner). The idea that the Litchfield experience has been less fair to the black population is simply not true although that’s not to deny that the backstories illustrate those inequalities outside of Litchfield quite well.

This is a show that, for the most part, has never told its viewers what path it should take in terms of differentiating wrong from right. This is why it’s somewhat upsetting that it never makes much differentiation between manslaughter and murder in terms of Bailey. Another move that doesn’t move discourse forward is filling Bailey with no emotions but guilt. The narrative has no interest in giving Bailey a man with any forward path to redemption or even sound restoration of mental health. The narrative is geared towards its viewers  who are upset about the persecution of blacks in the U.S. but don’t have the effort to think about the logistics about anything else. In other words, Bailey is a projection of what Black Lives Matter must want for the purveyors of black violence to do and think, and he’s just as easily a projection of their lack of anticipation that someone like Bailey could be anything else. 

The fact is Piscatella was clearly the villain of the fourth season whereas Baxter was one of the more humane members of his guard. Taystee and her fellow negotiators could be forgiven to some degree for having imperfect information,  but by how much? People more invested in the Black Lives Matter movement than myself will find nobility in her cause. 

I, on the other hand, spent my time thinking about how counter-productive her actions were and how they mirror the danger of tunnel vision with advocates pushing too strongly for any one cause of which Black Lives Matter is no exception: She did little to stop the PTSD-inducing experiences her fellow inmates were giving the guards, she felt “justice for Poussey” was more important than advocacy for Daya or keeping the only trained medic out of harm’s way, she failed to recognize the logistics involved in MCC’s limits when she was negotiating, and she didn’t take into account the needs of other prisoners when negotiating. 

The final episode posits Taystee as a Javert-like figure who’s seen the errors of her ways, but the question remains how other viewers interpreted the season. I’m not going to delve into the reviews and it’s not the responsibilty of the show to tell us how to think one way or another. It’s only my wish that the critical movers and shakers in TV see Taystee’s downfall as a legitimate part of her arc that makes sense in-universe. 

On the whole, though, the creative minds behind this show balance dozens of character arcs and get more leeway to mess up a couple. This season still gets a raving review. It has the same levels of nuance and masterful plotting and possibly deserves more credit for experimenting with the time frame. The whole season takes place over a four-day period in which the prisoners go bonkers and this world is turned upside down. Watching this season 16 months after it premiered without any knowledge of how this madness would end was quite thrilling. 

Random notes:

-This season is built like a classic tragedy. It's a study in human folly. What generally happens with tragedies in moviedom and on stage is the story spirals down to the worst case scenario and the title credits roll and we're left to think about the irony of people who could have done good having messed everything up. Audiences traditionally don't want to wallow in the aftermath because that's just plain sad. Let's see how Season 6 will navigate such a tricky balance. 

-I felt more than ever like skipping over the flashbacks. We are glued to the storyline at hand we don't need anything to break the tension at this point. They are completely unnecessary.

 

-I can't remember the name of the Hispanic prisoner who used Gloria's strategy against her but, ethically, it was entirely fair and I'm glad someone got pardoned by the governor.

-There should be a lesson here about how pharmacology and medicine are highly precise science and you shouldn't play God with other people's medicines. It was kind of amusing how Morello felt like "the new doctor" but that plotline could have carried more weight.

-The season kind of reminded me of the film "King of Hearts"

-Biggest plot hole: If Caputo's hands weren't tied, couldn't he have just taken his chances against Leanne and Angie when they were shoving him along to the poo. He had the element of surprise, and at that point, pretty much everything was going to become screwed.

-The show relies pretty heavily on pair bonds in various forms.  There’s: The unlikely friendship of Boo and Pennsatucky; the extremely likely friendship of Leanne and Angie who serve as this season’s most effective comic relief; the aggressive courtship of Nichols to the now-married Morelo; the reconnection of Sophia and Gloria after one hurt the other, and the Chapman/Vause romance that’s now being framed as true love rather than toxic co-dependency. This was a season in which a lot more couples- Flacca/Maritza, Pennsatucky/Boo, “Von Barlow”/Boo, Nichols/Morelo, Chapman/Vause, Angie/Leanne were going through positive phases and weathering the storm significantly better because they had someone by their side. It’s a stark contrast to Taystee and Soso who both felt isolated because they felt the weight of their friend.