mosaicnashville.org :: View topic - favorite films of twenty-oh-four

scribebytrade · Has ideas

so now would be the time exploit the opportunity to compile year-end lists. yeah, we're a tad bit late, but we had no forum, so let's make up for lost time.

i'm going to be really cliche for my #1 pick and say garden state. before you start rolling your eyes at my lack of creativity, i'd like to just say that the entire premiss of this movie meant alot to me on a very personal level. i think the reason so much of america ate it up at the box office was because so many people can relate to it. in such a medicated, sedated culture, life starts feeling so fabricated sometimes. zach braff's character was able to free himself from the comfortably numb mindset we're used to and feel something real for the first time in his life, even if it's pain. what an amazing statement to make.

coming in second would be the united states of leland. this is one i've been telling alot of people to see, largely due to the fact that it was scored by sunny day real estate's jeremy enigk. but in addition to having an incredible soundtrack, it's a really powerful movie. i had to see it twice to really fully understand it, but i watched it back to back with garden state and it made for a pretty introspective next few days.

i honestly am not a huge film buff. i just thought this would be an interesting topic.

shawn · Site Admin

Interesting that you would post about those 2 movies, because those are the next 2 movies we will be watching in Film and Theology (Starting up again on Jan 13th with Garden State).

Here are what i thought were the highlights of 2004:

Garden State
Saved!
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Napoleon Dynamite
The United States of Leland
Spiderman 2
Anchorman (guilty pleasure)
The Incredibles
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

It's funny to me that 2 of my favorite movies of the year featured Jim Carrey.

morgan · Newbie

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I Heart Huckabees
Garden State

I feel pretty cliche as well, listing those, and that's just too bad. I'm fairly certain that Huckabees will be one of my favorite movies of all time, if not my absolute favorite, by the time it comes out on dvd (next month, yesss).

scribebytrade · Has ideas

ah, i can't believe i left out napoleon dynamite. that was the one dvd that i got for christmas. well, besides the new duran duran cd/dvd set (yeah, i'm a pretty big nerd). i understand leslie wasn't quite as amused by it as you were, shawn. haha

i never saw i <3 huckabees, m0. we'll have to fix that when it comes out, i suppose.

as for jim carrey, i think his strongest roles have traditionally been the less slapstick ones. it seems like he kind of made a name for himself doing all the ace ventura/liar liar type stuff, and with that fame he was able to move onto some of these better roles. there's no doubt he's a good actor; he's just a bit more obnoxious than i really care to see, much of the time.

shawn · Site Admin

Morgan,

i was very sad, because i didn't like i heart huck. i was so excited about it, and maybe i built it up too much, but i was very disappointed.

maybe i missed the point. who knows.

morgan · Newbie

I went in not knowing anything about the movie- all I'd heard was that a lot of people had seen it. I can't really pinpoint why I loved it so much without watching it a few more times, but I tend to really get into movies that are simply about different people and the ways they deal with life... their worldviews, I guess.

and of course, I loved Napoleon Dynamite, but it didn't really fit on my list of favorite movies... heh.

WestWithTheNight · Newbie

This one is tough, as I saw a TON of movies.

I can't really pick a favorite one. But the highlights are (in no particular order)

"Bubba Ho-Tep"
"United States of Leland"
"Goodbye Lenin!"
"Garden State"
"Napoleon Dynamite"
"I Heart Huckabees" (there, now all the cliched movies are done)
"Spider-man 2"
"Saved!"
"Sideways"

I can't remember if these came out in 2003 or 2004, but their DVDs came out in 04, so they get listed as well...

"Lost in Translation"
"American Splendor"
"I Capture the Castle"

I'd really like to go to Sundance one year.

shawn · Site Admin

oh, i really need to see Bubba Ho-Tep. i've been meaning to for a while. i like Bruce Campbell.

yasheluah · Has ideas

"the passion of the Christ" (yes, i liked it and even saw it 3 times)
"napolean dynamite"
"phantom of the opera" (my fave musical ever)
"hero"
"the incredibles"
"spiderman 2"
"the village"
"50 first dates"
"mean girls" (yeah, i know...)

'04 movies i want to see but haven't yet:
"eternal sunshine of the spotless mind"
"garden state" (yay thursday!)
"maria full of grace"
"super size me"
"a very long engagement"
"lemony snicket"
"finding neverland"
"bourne supremacy"

WestWithTheNight · Newbie

noir · Has ideas

without a doubt the best of '04:

dawn of the dead
saw

i'm sucker when it comes to scary, gross movies. i love em.

scribebytrade · Has ideas

i never saw saw. i didn't hear too many good things about it, but still want to see it since everyone's favorite cary elwes is in it. i heard he's terrible... but it's all about nostalgia.

noir, i assume you probably saw the grudge. what did you think of it?

noir · Has ideas

i actually never went to see the grudge. people i talked to said it was pretty cliche.

what made saw so good was the ending. i won't give it away, but without the ending, the movie would've sucked.

astrotoby · Has ideas

I was such a huge David O Russell fan because of Three Kings, and I had my expectations really high, which could be one of the reasons I found I Heart Huckabees dissappointing. But I still loved it more than most movies I saw. If I was a girl I'd be in love with Mark Walberg.

I didn't like Spider Man 2 because I thought he was too much of a whiney bitch. "I'm quitting being Spider Man. I'm not quitting being Spider Man anymore." Too wimpy.

I didn't see Garden State, because everyone kept talking about it too much and I didn't want to jump on the bandwagon, but I'm sure it's wonderful and I will see it, of course.

top 10:

-Napoleon Dynamite was definitely in there.
-Hero was really cool.
-Eternal Sunshine was probably number one.
-I loved the second Kill Bill, but not as much as the first.
-I I couldn't believe how much I loved the newest Harry Potter movie.
-I really liked Shaun of the Dead, probably more than 28 Days Later.
-Oh, and Sideways was great. Now I drink Pinot.
-I also liked Primer a lot. Didn't understand it at all, but I liked it.
-I thought Fahrenheit 911 was really really really good.
-Hellboy was a lot better than Spider Man 2 in my opinion. But then again, I'm probably the only one in the world with that opinion.

a linne · Newbie

the best new movie of 2004 was, without a doubt, William Shatner's "Has Been."

er...

movies.