2004 Poll

[Holymanm]

lots of strange hours this week

67 AM? 52 o'clock?

[rischka]

feels like it, developing a nasty coffee addiction too

[greennui]

Chain (Jem Cohen) - Man, this was bleak, but neat as well. How to describe it, well, let's do the routine combining stuff, how about "Mumblecore James Benning" or "Chantal Akerman and Chris Marker fusing into the filmmaker 'Christal Makerman' making a film about global consumerism and American mall culture".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRBaykxoFt4

[St. Gloede]

Honestly, 2004 is a fairly weak year. It is the year I have seen the most of from the 00s, and still one of the years I have an overly impressive line-up for. Especially sad considering how strong 2003 was. Anyhow:

2046 (2004, Kar-Wai Wong)

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004, Wes Anderson)
Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand / Turtles Can Fly (2004, Bahman Ghobadi)
Mysterious Skin (2004, Gregg Araki)
Shimotsuma monogatari / Kamikaze Girls (2004, Tetsuya Nakashima)
The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004, Niels Mueller)
La mala educación / Bad Education (2004, Pedro Almodóvar)
Bin-jip (2004, Ki-duk Kim)
I Heart Huckabees (2004, David O. Russell)
Shijie / The World (2004, Zhangke Jia)
Samaria (2004, Ki-duk Kim)
Gegen die Wand / Head-On (2004, Fatih Akin)
Sideways (2004, Alexander Payne)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Michel Gondry)
Before Sunset (2004, Richard Linklater)
Mind Game (2004, Masaaki Yuasa)
The Woodsman (2004)
Triple Agent (2004, Eric Rohmer)
Hana to Arisu (2004, Shunji Iwai)
Los muertos (2004, Lisandro Alonso)

[lineuphere]

2004 was a banner year for me professionally, which meant I clocked very little time watching movies.

Among many others currently in my queue:
Throw Down (Johnnie To)
The Tuner (Kira Muratova)
Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow (Theodoros Angelopoulos)
Bab el shams (Yusri Nasrullah)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Innocence (Lucile Hadzihalilovic)
3-Iron (Ki-duk Kim)
Evolution of a Filipino Family (Lav Diaz)
Mind Game (Masaaki Yuasa)
The Intruder (Claire Denis)
The Holy Girl (Lucrecia Martel)
Los Muertos (Lisandro Alonso)
The Taste of Tea (Katsuhito Ishii)
Turtles Can Fly (Bahman Ghobadi)

[grabmymask]

Mysterious Skin (Gregg Araki)
Before Sunset (Linklater)
Anatomy of Hell (Breillat)
Collateral (Mann)
The Passion of The Christ (Gibson)
Unforgivable Blackness (Burns)
The Incredibles (Bird)
Kill Bill Vol II (Tarantino)
The Toolbox Murders (Hooper)
Spider-Man 2 (Raimi)

a very us-centric list, but oh well.

[rischka]

tried watching this, not henry james but a documentary on people who live in the mexican desert and survive by selling wild animals by the freeway. must be getting old and mentally/emotionally fragile but i just can't justify exposing myself to this much animal abuse. it's well shot and interesting certainly but nah.

it always bothers me more seeing animals hurt than people maybe i'm a monster

[brian d]

might just be that when we watch movies we can disconnect that the abuse towards people is something they're in on (though this is obviously not always true) but the animals don't get to pick.

[and that's henry miller, not sure if henry james was into kinky stuff ]

[rischka]

[and that's henry miller, not sure if henry james was into kinky stuff ]

hahaha d'oh. thx brian

[MrCarmady]

Shaun of the Dead is a lot of fun even if it doesn't quite match the laugh ratio of Hot Fuzz. The first act is brilliant and has aged really well, glad I waited till COVID-19 to finally see it. The action is a bit eh and Nick Frost's character is a bit too Gen X for me (the whole movie is super Gen-X-y), but the very end is also quite fun. Will probably make my list but I now feel the need to balance it out with some Martel or Joe.

[rischka]

so i watched mind game, a beautiful piece of animation of many styles and collage effects, lots of imagination and energy and i enjoyed it a lot; aside from the teen boy directed stuff it was quite funny too. would try this director again. many of the transitions were mindblowing and the sex montage killed me. w/full blown dance sequences like bollywood!

that said, aforementioned teen boy stuff will likely keep it out of my list

[rischka]

it's practically a piavoli so el cielo gira is in the list A+ retirement village

[greennui]

Throw Down - I feel like I was on a different wavelength with everything going on in this film. Didn't expect a kind of bumbling comedy with a cornball streak. So confused. A little more familiarity with To might clear some of it up.

Palindromes - Pedestrian Solondz misanthropy.

Man on Fire - Films from the vulgar auteurism canon are usually very hit and miss for me but this one was decent enough.

I'm kinda thinking about taking on the two big Hollywood peblum films of the year, Alexander and Troy.

[rischka]

braver than me greennui! from what i recall troy was terrible and alexander was so bad i couldn't finish it.

i also didn't appreciate throw down when i first watched but after many tos it's delights are much more apparent

i feel like vibing with herr von amerongen today ...

[kanafani]

I’ve seen Troy a couple of times on TV. It’s an OK adventure/action movie. Petersen is a competent guy.

And solondz may be misanthropic, but he’s not pedestrian!

[rischka]

brad pitt wearing not very many clothes is mostly what i remember

[sally]

oh cool, troy is on netflix. alexander isn't, so troy is it. although TWO shirt-off historical movies and none of them contain anyone i fancy. honestly. what was mads doing that year.

edit, king arthur. oh dear.

[Silga]

I think both Alexander and Troy are terrible films made by two competent directors who completely missed the mark. Although, I am no fan of the genre in general.

King Arthur (2004) is slightly better. I've only seen director's cut though.

[nrh]

king arthur, most easily read as bizarre us invasian of iraq apology!

i actually like alexander as bizarre camp and early weird digital mess of a thing but it is in a lot of ways a disastrous movie. still maybe the best oliver stone film!

[kanafani]

oh cool, troy is on netflix. alexander isn't, so troy is it. although TWO shirt-off historical movies and none of them contain anyone i fancy. honestly. what was mads doing that year.

edit, king arthur. oh dear.

I hope u don’t hold it against me if u don’t like it. I tend to enjoy stupid stuff.

[rischka]

still maybe the best oliver stone film!

colin farrell's wig put me off so much i think i never recovered

wow i'd totally forgotten that clive owen king arthur existed

[nrh]

still maybe the best oliver stone film!

colin farrell's wig put me off so much i think i never recovered

that's half of the fun! his eye shadow! angelina jolie, one year older than colin farrell, as his Sexy Mom! Val Kilmer! if this is not cinema...

[rischka]

the look on his face says it all

[rischka]

Herr amerongen gonna rewatch

I need a board and some string

[greennui]

And solondz may be misanthropic, but he’s not pedestrian!

I like Solondz but I think it was my minor by his standards.

i actually like alexander as bizarre camp and early weird digital mess of a thing but it is in a lot of ways a disastrous movie. still maybe the best oliver stone film!

It being an ill-judged, garish, early 2000's digital mess is def a big part of why it piqued my curiosity.

Think I saw the King Arthur one in the cinema. Keira Knightley wearing not very many clothes is mostly what i remember.

[greennui]

Should one rewatch Passion of the Christ too? I remember kinda liking it's fervent energy at the time but then I was 15.

[Holymanm]

^ one of the worst movies, in absolutely every way, that I've ever seen. But people here love Godard movies, so you never know!

[grabmymask]

Should one rewatch Passion of the Christ too? I remember kinda liking it's fervent energy at the time but then I was 15.

Umm I’d personally vouch for it, but I don’t know how trustworthy my taste is. I kinda dig it as a heretical fusion of devotional art and grindhouse exploitation. It’s crazy.

[Holymanm]

i'll just leave this shot (from google images, original filename "christ-killing monster jew.jpg") and leave you to determine if this movie is likely to be the serious work of art of a talented and humanistic filmmaker, or that of a deranged lunatic who doesn't know cinematography or editing from sun-dried gum on the sidewalk



on the other hand, yeah, i have absolutely no interest in exploitation cinema, so if you're into that - realising how absurd this is as anything like a real movie - it might still be great, who knows! but all in all i don't think this flick should be far behind BOAN for, if such a thing exists, the cancel-culture scrapheap

[rischka]

i remember the demon children were kinda cool but ofc he stole those from pasolini