Archive for Release Year: 2004

30 posts from 24 August 2024 to 20 January 2017.

  • Saw

    Not the gorefest the series is known about.

  • Cellular

    The one where the woman jury rigs a rotary phone and calls random numbers.

  • Starsky & Hutch

    Aren’t the 70’s whacky?

  • National Treasure

    Run of the Stuart Mill Brownian action flick. Franklin, I liked it.

  • Howl's Moving Castle

    Steampunk Wizard of Oz, set during the Great War.

  • Seed of Chucky

    Painfully unfunny. Yes, this is the middle of the series, but that doesn’t matter, there’s no canon anyway.

  • A Very Long Engagement

    Engaging for a very long time. War never changes.

  • In Good Company

    Good grief, what a milquetoast affair. Directed by the American Pie creator, here comes corporatist propaganda faux-raging against the system.

  • Girl Next Door

    From the ads, it seemed like another American Pie, but this is something else.

  • The Perfect Score

    Ocean’s Breakfast Club. At least that what the script was gunning for.

  • Secret Window

    A Stephen King adaptation about a mentally unstable writer, what a surprise. This is the one where he is stalked by a southern guy played with gusto by [Jesus Quintana](/2020/11/11/the-big-lebowski.html{:.inner-link}.

  • Crash

    Contrived coincidences cannot create cockups. Consequences cleanly cutoff.

  • Immortel, ad vitam

    Better than I remembered. A classic noir tale of Egyptian gods meddling with human (and mutant, and alien) affairs, with the protagonists being jerked around, railing against the gods for free will.

  • King Arthur

    Another nail in the coffin of a timeless story, eternally retold. Jammed into an anachronistic hodgepodge of Hollywood-esque action sequences and verbal quips.

  • Sideways

    Supreme writing about writing (and wine). Life, the Universe, Everything. Touching yet outrageously hilarious.

  • The Grudge

    The single-word American remake of a scarier Japanese horror film. Tasteful usage of fade to black all through the film softens the blow for the hardest hitting stuff.

  • The Butterfly Effect

    Got to be one of the most depressing films ever. Not only the shaggy dog stories pile up, the resolution takes the cake as one of the vilest endings ever. Not what a I expected from the directors of The Final Destination, starring Ashton Kutcher.

  • The Manchurian Candidate

    The 2004 remake. Why don’t you play a little solitaire? A sole political scion, shielded from the world by his mother, the heir of a political dynasty. They should name him “John Fitzgerald”, or “Chelsea”.

  • Birth

    This boy needs therapy (purely psychosomatic). What does that mean? You’re a nut! You’re crazy in the coconut.

  • Ocean's Twelve

    Doesn’t get old. Smashing!

  • Catwoman

    Me-wow! Woman Empowerment meets Sexy Leather Outfits. A much better look at the fashion industry that The Devil Wears Prada.

  • Van Helsing

    I personally prefer The Mummy, but this is also a very good revival of the old monster movies, minus Boris Karloff. A competent baby’s first gothic horror, a fantastic introduction to the Genre.

  • Around the World in 80 Days

    The silly adaptation. Fogg is still a upper class twit, but mostly the distracted type, always with his head on the books. Passapartout did rob the bank of England, but just to return stolen artefacts, so it’s fine, a kind of Elgin marbles situation. Monique is a struggling artist forced to wait on other twits like Vincent Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec.

  • The Punisher

    Undercover cop extraordinaire and loving father gets his whole family killed by a mobster and goes postal, punishing them for their sins. Pretty subdued, considering its current appropriation by fascist cops.

  • EuroTrip

    Holy shit, this is so 90’s teenage “comedy”. And so American, the come to generic “Europe” with green screens on exterior scenes.

  • Blade Trinity

    Who the fuck wrote this? Why? Blade is not an exasperated oldie, Whistler is a curmudgeon elder who dies (again), so Blade needs to run with Whistler’s Daughter (not the famous painting from Bean).

  • Resident Evil: Apocalypse

    The second one, a direct sequel. Mostly a retread with smaller and smaller mean scene length. There are just too damn many cuts, it’s all chopped up like confetti.

  • I, Robot

    Ahh, vintage Will Smith slaps … I mean, kicks ass. A bona fide Arnie-alike. The plot is great too.

  • Vanity Fair

    Good grief, those upper class twits are complete maniacs. Alas, this is no Dangerous Liaisons, truly evil is vanquished but there’s an happy ending anyway.

  • Troy

    Only a German would bother about a big budget Illiad adaptation. He’s no Schliemann, this is a proper adaptation with nice touches, even though it’s a 3000 years old story.