The MRFH 2004 Revue

In retrospect, 2004 was one of the worst years in my entire life in terms of memorable cinematic output. I actually blame the Mutant Reviewers from Hell site. Before I became a contributor, I was a carefree happy-go-lucky “regular Frankie fan.” I skimmed through Entertainment Weekly, paid minor attention to box office numbers, and disregarded that “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game when it went big. My sole forays into film criticism were imagining myself as a (dark) Jedi in junior high, writing film reviews for school newspapers, and reading Fangoria religiously at the mall bookstores. I had a stable of favorite films, to be sure, but it was no big thing. As long as I had Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan and the Star Wars movies on VHS and a working VCR, all other pop culture stuff was incidental.

But then I lucked into writing for MRFH, and my life changed. For the worse! Nah. I’m just kidding. It was more (delayed) maturity and the newfound necessity of using films, music, comics, books, and all kinds of artistic minutiae to find, understand, and communicate who I am... to girls. It all kinda happened around the same time. From that point on, though, I started to pay close attention to movies both mainstream and obscure, read and wrote movie scripts, and stalked Hollywood hotties (now I lived in the warm California sun). Films became a big facet of my interest and life, and once I got a DVD player my infatuation became immense and total. Each new year was filled with promise and potential elation, the end of a year meant reading countless best/worst lists and making sure I had mined all the awesome stuff dropped onto us that I could, that I would presumably keep with me for the rest of my life.

That’s my routine, at least. It isn’t always smooth, it isn’t always easy, and some years are less charming and fulfilling than others. There are always a few gems to be found; 2004 is no different, in the end. But it sure seems to have been more disappointing than any other year in recent memory. Especially concerning movies. So much stuff I went to see in the theaters this year was at best underwhelming, at worst total garbage. Out of all my trips to the theaters, my most winning experiences were with Mean Girls, Fahrenheit 9/11, Garden State, and The Phantom of the Opera. Oh, Dawn of the Dead was a lot of fun, as was Dodgeball and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and I honestly wish I had seen Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Kill Bill Vol. 2, and Soul Plane on the big screen (they were great rentals, but would have been awesome at the theater!). Other than that, stuff ranged from “okay” to “man, if I wasn’t so shy or vaguely criminal-looking, I’d ask for a full refund.” What a total drag.

Ultimately, my primary criticism of ’04’s films is that across the board they generally ran far longer than they should have. I don’t know if filmmakers are urging for a return to the languid cinema of the past (think Bergman and visually sprawling, with or without black-and-white filmography) or if they’re getting paid by the minute now. If I could forcibly impose one resolution in ’05 it would be for filmmakers to get more enthusiastic in the editing room. I’m all for the occasional silent scene to allow us some room to empathize, or the lingering close-up on Scarlett Johansson’s... face, but too often I got impatient and felt like movies were more bloated than emotional (or Oscar-worthy). Two hour running times are not what we expect, people: we expect quality!

Oh, and could we get some better film trailers before movies, please? The worst offender I can think of was the preview for National Treasure, which had a horrendous narrator providing commentary with a voice that would have better suited a documentary on the Library of Congress than a Bruckheimer action flick. Across the board, trailers were either completely uninteresting or managed to take away any enthusiasm I might have had. When I went to see Phantom, there were previews for the Colin Farrell “new world/live-action Pocahontas” film and some boring Crusades movie with Orlando Bloom and other tired-looking thespians. I remain convinced it was actually the same film filmed twice by two different directors. Whatever. Better trailers, please. That’s all I ask.

The gulf between my personal tastes and what’s accepted as “grrrreat!” seemed to grow ever wider this past year. Sure, The Day After Tomorrow and Troy were disappointments for pretty much everybody, but it’s hard to express my profound frustration and disenchantment with stuff like Spider-Man 2 or The Bourne Supremacy in any public setting without risking bodily harm or a chocolate milkshake to my crotch (long story). No worries, ‘course. Maybe 2005 will be better (Sleepless Knights, perhaps?) or maybe worse (Episode III: Revenge of the Sith). It’ll certainly be fun finding out. I’ll keep you informed, yeah? See you in the theaters.

There’s more to Life than movies, Kyle.

I suppose I should mention something about the general slate of raw and gooey pop culture material served up in 2004. The general response I had for anything I encountered was “Who cares?” since I was just kind of gung-ho about being blasé; as I (sort of) mature and now try to find one of those “careers” I hear so much about, what time do I possibly have for nonsense?

Of course, the joke is on me, as it is on you. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere and have no internet connection or satellite television, you got deluged by pure stuff just like the rest of us, and it affected you in ways only paranoid parapsychologists and communications majors can fully comprehend. There were new songs you sang in the shower, new movies you couldn’t wait to own, books you read and then pushed on your friends because “it’s like a Da Vinci mystery!” There were ‘zines and comic strips and Wheaties boxes and MadTV jokes and a thousand other little pieces of art injected into your brain whether you wanted them or not. It was all mostly painless as always, and what would you and your friends talk about if you didn’t have it all to call on? Thank God for culture!

I barely noticed too much worth repeating, actually. I guess the crappy state of films was reflective of the general crappy state of pop culture. There were bright spots, thankfully. William Shatner’s new album Has Been may or may not be a classic for the ages (I haven’t listened to the whole thing, so I’m not the one to ask) but his cover of Pulp’s “Common People” is so incredible I can’t even believe it. One of my top life’s soundtrack songs ever; thanks, Jim! Pierce Brosnan appears to be done with the James Bond franchise: whether that will be for the best or a sign of an eminent apocalypse will be more clear perhaps in 2005. Grant Morrison was the man as always. The OC still rules and hit the DVD shelves, allowing it and other filmed entertainment (I’m thinking especially of Arrested Development) to be purchased in huge season blocks and revealed as some of the greatest television shows ever. Get me Scrubs sets and I’ll be really happy! I discovered the joys of Nerf, and loved U2’s “Vertigo” so ****ing much it was the first song I put onto my new iPod. Ah, the power of advertising. Pop culture rules!

So, in retrospectical conclusion...

2004. It’s over now, and I’ve gotta say: I can barely remember it at all.

I blame college. Now, college is a blast and I recommend it to everybody, whether you want to learn or just “chill” for a while. But it infringes in a major way on your free time. Damn! I squeezed a few cinematic breaks in, organized a couple movie nights, and figured I’d pick up the movie madness slack after I graduated.

Sadly, 2004 was working against me. I mean, damn! There was plenty of film projected up against the walls, but very little of it stuck (in a metaphoric sense). There was hype galore tearing me every which way; largely unrequited hype, in the long run. It got so bad that those few pseudo-indie films that had killer soundtracks and wide audience appeal got built up into world-shattering works of brilliance; labels that may or may not last past their DVD release dates.

That’s the way it goes, though. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I guess I should have known 2004 would be pretty bleak when I didn’t enjoy my first whacked-out-of-the-ballpark positive film experience until the beginning of May, when a bunch of us ditched out on some stupid graduation rehearsal thing to see Mean Girls. If had seen Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen on the big-screen that would probably count as my first good movie of ’04, but all things considered I’m glad I saw the more nuanced Lohan performance in Mean Girls in theaters and waited to rent Confessions.

Checking out a list of 2004’s film releases was a pretty strange experience. So much garbage, so few films I haven’t seen that sound (at most) slightly interesting, and so little that was actually good. Oh well. Better luck next year, you know? I didn’t mind the drop in quality in the current crop of films; it gave me plenty of free time and enthusiasm for unearthing gems from the past in film, music, and books. William Shatner, Grant Morrison, Avril Lavigne, and others helped keep my mind off the deplorable selection at my theaters, so at least I stayed sane. But man oh man do I hope 2005 will be a return to glory. There’s no way Episode 3 can possibly be any good (I’m a glass-half-empty guy), but how can 2005 be as bad as ’04? It just can’t, right? *sob*

Hey, Awards de 2004 time! Why not?

Jim’s Captain’s Log winner - Fahrenheit 9/11

Best Lindsay Lohan experience - Mean Girls

Best Lohan-related news I hope sticks – Samaire Armstrong to co-star with Lohan in (stupid) “Lady Luck” movie

Most earth-shattering “no soup for you!” disappointment - Spider-Man 2

Best television show to debut in 2004 – Veronica Mars

Best returning show I discovered in 2004 – Without a Trace (Poppy!)

Best fruit I ate – Kiwi

Best all-around dinner choice – tie! Cheese enchilada dinner combo OR steak and lobster

Biggest surprise movie I really dug - Soul Plane

Film closest to my life as it is - Garden State

Most overrated actress I love anyway – Natalie Portman

Best pirated DVD purchase – John Doe: The Complete Series (TV)

Coolest foreign DVD experience - Ju-On: The Grudge

Scariest film that cost me sleep and gave me nightmares - Dark Water

Film I got the most guff for not having seen that I fully intend to continue to avoid because I couldn’t care less - Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Film most indicative of what I’d be like as a girl - Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

Film I thought I’d like but didn’t at all and had to zip through at high speeds - Sleepover

Actresses from Sleepover I hope get awesome parts, possibly in James Bond movies – Mika Boorem and Scout Taylor-Compton

Film I never thought I’d like that is surprisingly a lot of fun, if a tad overlong - Chasing Liberty

Film that must (please!) show up on DVD in 2005 - Plain Clothes

Biggest personal crusade from 2004 that must carry over in 2005 – Finding the perfect pair of jeans!

2004’s most important film that I kept forgetting to see that I guess I’ll go see this weekend as my first theater experience of 2005 - The Incredibles