2004's Best Movies: 20 Years Later

I'm not sure it was ever beloved. It stands up as a screwball comedy, i.e. your favorite genre.

nothing was funnier to me than the Mark Wahlberg ranting politics at Christian businessman's dinner table and upsetting the dude's kids

which very closely resembled conversations around the Neanderthal family dinner table around that timeframe

xp true, I mistakenly remembered it winning the FC poll in '04. It didn't (tho it made the top 20)

https://www.filmcomment.com/article/best-films-of-2004/

Both Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I ♥ Huckabees had really interesting premises that I didn't feel were worked out especially effectively.

Huckabees was one of the most unpleasant films I turned off after 20 minutes, it was like a smart npr version of those terrible MST3K live skits or something

sorry to be mean it just really hurt my soul

I don't deny it. I haven't watched it again since 2005. I didn't like what Russell made Huppert endure. But the film's also a farewell to the Russell I liked.

kung fu hustle and altho i like plenty from this list its not close for a seconf

God, I saw Huckabees on election night 2004 when it was clear that W was getting re-elected (or might the night after election night), and somehow it felt profoundly about the red/blue-state divide, but haven't seen it since.

I don't remember seeing Eternal Sunshine, but after watching The Truman Show and Man On the Moon I realized that as much as I love Jim Carrey's over-the-top comedic performances (especially in Dumb and Dumber), I'm not quite inclined to take him as seriously as a dramatic actor. I guess the film must be good since it is so highly rated. I will see it at some point

Tropical Malady is beautiful and mysterious, but I agree with Halfway there but for you, it is hard to understand. L'Intrus is the most bizarre and inscrutable of all of Claire Denis' films, but it is interesting.

I watched Eternal Sunshine two weeks ago for the first time in 20 years too: my students were writing about it. The slapstick stuff with Tom Hiddleston, Frodo, and Mark Ruffalo holds up, and Kate Winslet disembowels the Manic Pixie Girl cliche.

Where's Academy Award nominee SHREK 2?

Nobody Knows is an excellent film if you are in the mood to curl up and want to die afterwards (based on a true story no less!)

It is my favorite Kore-eda film

the 14-year old boy Yûya Yagira won the best actor prize at Canes that year

*Cannes

The first part of Tropical Malady is about the burgeoning love between Keng a soldier stationed in a rural village in northern Thailand and Tong a villager, and about their courtship. The rural location is idyllic, and the nature sounds overwhelm the soundtrack. They are amplified in the most incredible way.

There is an interlude. The next day we see a soldier examining a room and a bed that a boy has slept in and the photos he has kept, but it’s not clear that it is Keng and Tong.

The last part is the most mysterious. The soldier is tracking a tiger. “As the inner worlds of both man and man-tiger draw closer together in their shared desperation, the world of the forest becomes dreamy and ghostlike, filled with monkeys that seem on the verge of speech and spirits that rise from dead cows”

Of all of the reviews I have read, the one by Tash Aw makes the most sense of it. “We realize how they must have felt, because we feel it now too: love is dangerous, love will consume us; we are powerless before our desire.”

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/11/13/the-hypnotic-threat-of-apichatpongs-tropical-malady/

As per usual it isn't the film that's on trial here

There's no way it's not Howl's

theres every way, I'll tell you two, with a bonus specific moment-

- the first time the axe gang visit pig sty alley

- the second time the axe gang visit pig sty alley

bonus- the moment the landlord floats down with the musical assassins

Tropical Malady

I need to rewatch Kung Fu Hustle now that I've seen a fair amount of the films it's riffing on.

There was a list online (probably still is?) that detailed every reference in both Kill Bills and it wasn't a half bad guide for me getting into world genre cinema.

those lists can be helpful!

The Incredibles is incredibly underrated, and despite some absolute classics in this list that I adore, it ended up getting my vote

The slapstick stuff with Tom Hiddleston

Wilkinson!

darragh otm about the gap

Yeah, duh, lol

I'd love to slap Tom Hiddleston with uh

As per usual it isn't the film that's on trial here

― Morris O’Shea Salazar (Noodle Vague), Friday, March 8, 2024

on trial? don't understand this post

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/04/11/painting-trial/

Does anyone still believe in objective quality?

A visitor to the Louvre in Paris viewed the renowned Mona Lisa and stated loudly, “That painting is nothing special. I am unimpressed.” A curator who was standing nearby said, “That painting is not on trial; you are on trial.”

“This novel is boring; it contains too many details about whale hunting,” insisted a student. The teacher replied, “Hermann Melville and his tour de force are not on trial. You students are on trial.”

This attitude doesn't serve to elucidate or educate, it's just a reinforcement of the snobbery of the so-called judge.

We are all on trial, and of course we're guilty as hell.

Does anyone still believe in objective quality?

No, but in a miraculous coincidence my personal tastes match the standards of objective quality perfectly

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted The World, haven't seen it in 19 years but it has really stuck with me

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Extremeley satisfactory