Criticism, I am always quick to remind, is a subjective art. So my choices for the best movies of 2004 may not reflect yours—and certainly not my other colleagues. In fact, my 'Best Of' list is sure to change. I generally have space to write about two movies a week ( give or take ) in this column and that leaves a lot of potentially great stuff out there waiting to be discerned ( I have yet to see Sideways and Bad Education, for example ) . I'm the first to admit that I haven't seen everything—and critical responsibilities aside—I hate seeing any movie when I'm not in the mood for it. For example, it took me six months after Halle Berry won the Oscar to finally get interested in Monster's Ball one late night on cable. Seeing it immediately changed my 'Best Of' list for 2001, however, but I didn't know that until late in 2002.
So, at the moment, in looking back over 2004, these are some of the films that have had a great impression on me. Documentaries and biopics seemed to be the two film genres of choice this year with a slew of both filling theaters. Certainly, the opening night last summer of Michael Moore's indictment of the Bush administration, Fahrenheit 9/11, was the single most thrilling cinema experience of the year from an audience perspective. It was galvanizing to see the hordes of people camped out, standing in line for hours at the Landmark Century to see a DOCUMENTARY. The movie has become the highest grossing documentary of all time and had the effect of kick starting the election into high gear. This is also Moore's strongest film yet ( aided by his decision to keep his appearance in the movie to a minimum ) .
Another documentary, The Corporation, had an even stronger effect on me. The work of two Canadian filmmakers, the movie begins by revealing the little-known fact that legally a corporation has the same rights as an individual. Once that bizarre idea sinks in, the filmmakers examine what such a person, were they to exist, would be like. The answer, not surprisingly, is that of a psychopath—a really bad one. The film, which resembles a long Frontline episode, quietly lays out the ever-increasing powers of this nameless, faceless entity. This was documentary as car wreck—fascinating but horrific—a really hot subject that calls for a follow-up.
When it comes to biopics the year was packed with them. Though Kinsey gets an honorable mention for its subject matter and Ray for its powerful leading performance by Jamie Foxx, Finding Neverland—the story of playwright J.M. Barrie's creation of 'Peter Pan'—and The Aviator—Scorcese's take on the early life of billionaire industrialist and film producer Howard Hughes—were the best. Director Marc Foster, in his follow-up to Monster's Ball, pulls off an amazing feat, showing us the simultaneous positive and negative aspects of the power of the imagination. A second screening has convinced me that this is my favorite film of 2004 with The Aviator not far behind. Though I contend that Leonardo DiCaprio's teenage physicality is wrong for the leading role, it doesn't stop Scorcese's film from soaring almost as high as Hughes did.
Though Colin Farrell's bid for male action hero badly failed with the much-anticipated, and justly derided, Alexander, his multifaceted work in the earlier A Home at the End of the World shouldn't be overlooked. This little-seen relationship film was for me the 'gay movie' of the year ( if there is such a thing ) and also contains assured, delicately shaded performances from Robin Wright-Penn, Sissy Spacek and newcomers Dallas Roberts and Erik Smith. The other would be Tarnation, in which a gay man fights not just his own battle with mental illness but his mother's as well. Jonathan Caouette's searing documentary would be too painful without the hopeful ending while his creative assemblage of photos, videotapes and archival material on his boyfriend's iMac movie software to edit for a little over $200 was justly touted.
The hilarious black comedy Saved! which takes place in a Christian high school and features a virginal teenager ( named Mary, natch ) trying to save her gay boyfriend from the flames of Hell and Damnation ( 'You're born again, not born a gay' she is reminded ) was also somewhat overlooked. The film cast a group of sharp, funny actors who obviously relished the biting material. They included Jena Malone, Mandy Moore and Macaulay Culkin—who, between his droll paraplegic here and out-of-control-club-kid in Party Monster—is making a nice little second career for himself with interesting role choices.
Other movies I liked a lot this year ( in no particular order ) :
1. Shall We Dance? ( a true, old-fashioned audience pleaser that I wrongly thought would be a big hit—but it may find a wider audience on DVD ) .
2. Harry Potter 3 ( director Alfonso Cuarón nicely put the emphasis back on magic and mystery in the series ) .
3. Broadway: The Golden Age ( Rick McKay's one-man documentary is an embarrassment of riches for any self-respecting theater aficionado ) .
4. The Incredibles ( Pixar's digital animation just keeps getting better and better and creatively trumped two new hybrids of the genre: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and The Polar Express ) .
5. Troy ( the movie with the most gay subtext of the year—and not a bad action picture, either ) .
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Straight-Jacket is the fictionalized version of superstar Rock Hudson's phony, 'bearded' marriage to a studio secretary in order to hide his homosexuality back at the height of his fame in the mid-'50s. The film, which was the closing night presentation of Reeling, the gay and lesbian film festival last fall, is getting a theatrical run here at the Music Box. It opens Friday. The 'straight jacket' refers, of course, to the unfortunate situation that the Hudson character, Guy Stone, finds himself in when forced to marry in order to maintain his he-man image.
Director Richard Day, who last wrote and helmed the hilarious but overlooked Girls Will Be Girls, has based his follow-up movie on his play and has shot it in the style of the Hudson-Doris Day Technicolor comedies ( but unfortunately, obviously didn't have the same big budget as those or the more recent triumphant recreation of them, Down With Love ) . The cheapo computer special effects that stand in for Guy's mansion are blatantly obvious and detract from what is already a confused amalgam of styles.
Though the film is at times playful and bright, has the hunky Matt Letscher in the lead, Adam Greer as his equally shapely heartthrob, and the sublime, tough and funny Veronica Cartwright as his jaundiced agent, Jerry, the overall tone of the picture is quite odd. Many of the scenes seem to have been acted and edited as if they were still waiting the addition of a sitcom laugh track and fall flat waiting for the guffaws that don't verbally come. Also, Jack Plotnick, who plays Stone's pot-smoking, Communist-leaning, straight-acting rival, so funny in Girls Will Be Girls, is badly miscast.
The best reason to see the film is Carrie Preston as Sally, the innocent but controlling wife. When Sally performs an impromptu musical number for the momentarily stunned studio chief at the huge organ he has installed in his office, the film reaches its comic zenith. www.musicboxtheatre.com
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'Dyke Delicious,' which organizers tout as 'evenings of lesbolicious cinematic excitement' returns on Saturday, Jan. 8 for its second year of screenings. Filmmaker Sharon Zurek heads up the series at Chicago Filmmakers. Tickets are $7 and are on sale at Chicago Filmmakers ( 5243 N. Clark St., 2nd Floor ) starting at 5 p.m. the evening of the showings, ( 773 ) 293-1447.
See www.dykediva.com or see www.chicagofilmmakers.org .
