There was a lot of really, really good stuff at the box office this year. As opposed to last year, when it became a struggle to fill a top ten list, I find myself struggling to confine my list to less than 20 or so.
I'll get to the very best movies shortly, but here are some of the less-than-perfect flicks that are still worth remembering.
The one that just barely missed: Hero
Make all the comparisons you want to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but Hero eclipses that film easily. A glorious vision of beautiful cinematography, splendid action, and gorgeous swordfight choreography, this is a film that cannot be missed. Swordplay becomes a thrilling ballet in these fight sequences, less about physical reality and more about the undercurrent of emotions running through the fighters. Director Zhang Yimou paints with color as he orchestrates the almost musical battles, turning them into true art. A film for the ages.
The sound of one man clapping: The Village
Hey, I know -- you probably hated it. So did everyone else. I have no problems being among the few who got a kick of this one. The understated score, the wonderous performance from Bryce Dallas Howard, and the little nuances packed into the script that only really register on a second viewing -- I thought it was brilliant. Mr. Shyamalan probably does need to turn it down just a little, though: next time, no twist, whaddaya say?
One man's genius: Ray
Take Jamie Foxx out of this movie, and you're left with an emotionally flat, generic biopic with a child's idea of psychoanalysis. But Foxx's performance is so grand, so full of life and energy, that he single-handedly brings the film to the brink of greatness. He'll bring home the Oscar for this one, and he probably deserves it.
Preaching to the choir: Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism and Bush's Brain
The tragedy of these very good documentaries -- both of which blast the conservative right -- is that the people who need to see them (like the ones who blindly allow Fox to tell them everything they need to know) won't. So they only get to people like me -- people who already know that Fox News is a blight on the face of the media, and that George Bush is a mere puppet in the hands of his political advisors. Their triumph is bittersweet, but a triumph nonetheless.
The sequels that shouldn't work: Spider-Man 2, Shrek 2, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The common logic is that sequels always suck, but here's a trio of movies that blows that out of the water. Azkaban takes off largely thanks to the efforts of director Alfonso Cuaron, who brings an emotional immediacy that the previous two films (helmed by corporate hack Chris Columbus) severely lacked. Shrek 2, meanwhile, towers over the embarassing, raunchy predecessor -- give part of the credit to a much-improved script, part of it to less of a focus on Disney-bashing, and a substantial piece to Antonio Banderas, who achieves greatness as Puss-in-Boots. Sam Raimi, meanwhile, creates what is easily one of the best superhero movies ever made in Spider-Man 2 (which I seriously underrated on first viewing, and it gets better every time). If only all sequels could be as wonderful as these, right?
Next: The Best Films of 2004.
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