TOP FILMS OF 2004

By Shelley Cameron

With a command performance by Imelda Staunton in the title role, Mike Leigh delivers powerful commentary on abortion rights. His story of a good woman who helps other women to end their unwanted pregnancies in repressive 1950s London is a keen observation on today’s views of the still-controversial issue through a fifty year-old prism.

2.The Aviator

Martin Scorsese’s phenomenal, focused observation on the mystery that was billionaire flyer, movie mogul, and legendary lover, Howard Hughes. A nuanaced performance from Leonardo DiCaprio heading a cast and company of uniformly fine efforts in editing, cinematography, and musical score that pulls together for an all around winner.

Lars von Trier comments on life in America, the ensemble cast including Ben Gazzara, Lauren Bacall, Harriet Anderssen, Nicole Kidman, and Phillip Baker Hall, has Kidman as a beautiful outsider who seeks refuge in a quaint mountain town and is received with something less than the milk of human kindness. Von Trier’s cynical eagle-eye point of observation is an often-uncomfortable one that views the inhabitants from on high, truthfully albeit with distain.

In the guise of fight film, director and star Clint Eastwood delivers a poignant, sweet, tragic, love story. Not romantic love, but refreshingly a more pure, selfless love that develops between a crusty fight manager, a not-so-young woman who yearns for the ring, and the damaged old pug who could have been a contender. With Hillary Swank and Morgan Freeman.

Michael Mann’s ode to LA and classic film noir has a lively, piercing performance by Tom Cruise as a pathological hired killer and Jamie Foxx as the unlucky cabby who gets more than he bargained for when the hitmat hires him for the night. Lyrical as an improvised jazz riff, atmospheric, and satisfying all around.

        8. The Sea Inside

Beautifully executed dramatization of the real-life of Ramón Sampedro, who spent 30 years fighting in the Spanish courts for the legal right to die after a diving accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. Javier Bardem leads a sound cast under the stylized, fanciful, direction of Alejandro Amenábar.

9. Hotel Rwanda

Based on actual incidents at a luxury hotel during the horrific massacre of Hutus by the brutal Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, Don Cheadle is outstanding as the apolitical hotel manager who has greatness thrust upon him and rises to the occasion in the midst of turmoil with courage and grace to save over 1200 lives during the slaughter that ravaged the country.

10. Maria Full of Grace

Resting squarely on the shoulders of its lead actress, newcomer Catalina Sandino Moreno, this piercing drama about a young woman who risks everything for a chance at changing her bleak future in Columbia by smuggling drugs is a moving diatribe against the inhumanity of the illegal drug trade.

11. Ray

Boasting a phenomenal performance from Jamie Foxx as the legendary singer, songwriter, and superstar Ray Charles, this relatively traditional biopic is elevated by Foxx to the point of delivering the illusion that we are actually watching Charles star in his own life story.

Other worthwhile films of this year include:

	A Very Long Engagement
	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
	I Y Huckabees
	Spring Summer fall winter and ... Spring
	Japanese Story
	On The Run Trilogy
	The Return
	Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself
	The Incredibles
	Intermission
	Tarnation
	Bon Voyage
	Fahrenheit 911

Shelley Cameron © 2004

shelley@reelmoviecritic.com