Friday, December 31, 2004
Doughboy's Movie Review of 2004 Yahoo have done their own review but my review only includes films I've seen. I've done pretty well this year seeing over 2 films a month at the cinema, mainly due to being extremely bored in Vancouver. Anyway, here's my review:
Best film of the year is Motorcycle Diaries - I went in knowing not much more than it was about Che Guevera and that he's the bloke off the t-shirts who fought some revolution and helped Castro. The movie itself details his pre-revolutionary tour of South America with his best buddy and is one of the best films I have seen ever, especially considering it's in Spanish.
Runner up is Shaun Of The Dead. Who'd have thought that a piss take of zombie movies by a novice director would be such quality?
Worst film of the year is Matrix Revolutions - the cynical amongst us suspected it was only downhill after the original Matrix film and we were right. The 3rd film managed to be even worse than the awful 2nd one, making the 2nd one look not too bad in retrospect. I'm not a pro-movie reviewer so I can't really articulate why it was so bad, other than to say, it was boring with a rubbish plot and the acting got ridiculously hammed up.
Most surprisingly good film of the year is a toss up between Ray and Calendar Girls. I have no real interest in Ray Charles music but it turns out his life was tremendously interesting and as is usual with most successful people, he had to overcome extraordinary challenges and set back, not including being blind from childhood. Calendar Girls was a movie I went to see with my mum so she didn't have to go on her own and I actually found it to be pretty good. I don't think it would make it into my DVD collection (if I had one) but I was surprised that I enjoyed it. It had great actresses in it (Julie Walters and Helen Mirren) and was an amusing story about a group of Yorkshire ladies overcoming adversity. I guess I'm a sucker for those overcoming adversity movies.
Other movies that I enjoyed:
Team America World Police - ridiculous puppetry taking the piss out of the yanks and the liberals
Friday Night Lights - American Football movie about a High School team
Collateral - Tom Cruise as a convincing assassin
Hellboy - never heard of it or read the cartoon but it was fun
Farenheit 911 - more interesting insight from Michael Moore although I don't buy it all hook, line and sinker
I Robot - widely slated but I thought it did exactly what it said on the tin. Will Smith made wise cracks and chased evil robots
Day After Tomorrow - involved Geography and people freezing to death
Kill Bill Vol.2 - much better than vol. 1 in my opinion, but that's because I enjoyed the classic Tarantino dialogue more than his foray into fantasy violence
Movies that slightly disappointed:
Hero - still not convinced by this Art House martial arts genre
House of Flying Daggers - see above
Bourne Supremacy - not as good as Bourne Identity and very predictable
The Incredibles - I liked the concept but the moral undertones were a little bit obvious and it lacked the charm of other animation movies such as Antz and Finding Nemo.
Movies I missed that I really want to see:
School of rock
Last Samurai
Starsky and Hutch
Anchorman
Best film of the year is Motorcycle Diaries - I went in knowing not much more than it was about Che Guevera and that he's the bloke off the t-shirts who fought some revolution and helped Castro. The movie itself details his pre-revolutionary tour of South America with his best buddy and is one of the best films I have seen ever, especially considering it's in Spanish.
Runner up is Shaun Of The Dead. Who'd have thought that a piss take of zombie movies by a novice director would be such quality?
Worst film of the year is Matrix Revolutions - the cynical amongst us suspected it was only downhill after the original Matrix film and we were right. The 3rd film managed to be even worse than the awful 2nd one, making the 2nd one look not too bad in retrospect. I'm not a pro-movie reviewer so I can't really articulate why it was so bad, other than to say, it was boring with a rubbish plot and the acting got ridiculously hammed up.
Most surprisingly good film of the year is a toss up between Ray and Calendar Girls. I have no real interest in Ray Charles music but it turns out his life was tremendously interesting and as is usual with most successful people, he had to overcome extraordinary challenges and set back, not including being blind from childhood. Calendar Girls was a movie I went to see with my mum so she didn't have to go on her own and I actually found it to be pretty good. I don't think it would make it into my DVD collection (if I had one) but I was surprised that I enjoyed it. It had great actresses in it (Julie Walters and Helen Mirren) and was an amusing story about a group of Yorkshire ladies overcoming adversity. I guess I'm a sucker for those overcoming adversity movies.
Other movies that I enjoyed:
Team America World Police - ridiculous puppetry taking the piss out of the yanks and the liberals
Friday Night Lights - American Football movie about a High School team
Collateral - Tom Cruise as a convincing assassin
Hellboy - never heard of it or read the cartoon but it was fun
Farenheit 911 - more interesting insight from Michael Moore although I don't buy it all hook, line and sinker
I Robot - widely slated but I thought it did exactly what it said on the tin. Will Smith made wise cracks and chased evil robots
Day After Tomorrow - involved Geography and people freezing to death
Kill Bill Vol.2 - much better than vol. 1 in my opinion, but that's because I enjoyed the classic Tarantino dialogue more than his foray into fantasy violence
Movies that slightly disappointed:
Hero - still not convinced by this Art House martial arts genre
House of Flying Daggers - see above
Bourne Supremacy - not as good as Bourne Identity and very predictable
The Incredibles - I liked the concept but the moral undertones were a little bit obvious and it lacked the charm of other animation movies such as Antz and Finding Nemo.
Movies I missed that I really want to see:
School of rock
Last Samurai
Starsky and Hutch
Anchorman
