This is it. for me this is an easy choice and a controversial choice. I feel like I have to defend this film over and over again (well to the imaginary friends I have in my head). Critics panned it at Cannes...Ebert and Gallo had a terrifying verbal battle that actually resulted in Ebert getting the cancer that Gallo wished on him. Gallo added to it by having a billboard made in LA with Chloe Sevigny blowing him...Look Gallo is an actor I love...he is quirky...he is actually very good in funny films...but lets face it...he is not historically been in very good films and the acting has been bad...I have tried to see all his films...they are hard to come by but Netflix has done me well...what other actor can play a masturbating astronaut on Mars and make it seem sooo sad? So I bought the brown bunny on DVD...it took me 2 sittings to watch all the way through...it is slow slow slow...but then I started watching it while wrapping Christmas presents one winter night...and let me tell you my mind starting to absorb the film as a genuine and honest look at male fragility that I at least have never seen on film...guys are tough and macho...and never show that vulnerable side...we all have had that moment...breaking up with a girl and pouring over notes and poems to the one that broke our heart while listening to Black Sabbath over and over again...telling our friends while drinking many beers about how you miss her...Cameron Crowe usually does this best in mainstream films...but this is Gallo...this is low tech across country 3 man crew...with no talent not even actors as characters in Gallo's road movie...the music is great...the places he shoots is great (I once emailed him for the route so I could travel one day and have a "Brown Bunny experience tour"...he gave me the directions). From the New Hampshire raceway, to a Chinese diner in St Louis, to the Utah Bonnevile salt flats and on to Los Angeles...this is a minimalistic epic sad story of lost love and a mans tortured and guilty soul opening in front of us...Gallo is excellent in this...to add I bought straight from his vgmerchandise web site the Japanese import of Brown Bunny...I converted it to English and spent weeks copying it onto a DVD so I could listen to the Gallo Commentary..its awesome its honest and I listen to it often...I love this film...its one I feel I have to champion...its not for everyone and I cant wait till Gallo's "Promises Written in Water" comes out...also check him out in Buffalo 66.
Others in Contention this year:
Sideways
I know I have to see more Alexander Payne films...this one is great...what a chemistry by the leads...what a great love story similar to the male honest hurt of Brown Bunny...but this film is fun...funny...sad..and just great...the commentary on the DVD with Church and Giamati is very funny...but you need a PHD to keep up with the two of them...I know Giamati went to Yale...and it shows...he uses big words but Church must have read a dictionary or be smart too...because the both of them have this back and forth high brow comedy going on during the commentary...its like the exact opposite of the Orgazmo DVD commentary
Collateral
Micheal Mann uses the grainy camera to show a life lived in one night in the streets of LA...Tom Cruise is a bad ass and on fire in this role...my only complaint is that Jaime Fox has no skill, is a taxi cab driver and he gets the balls to all of a sudden take out this trained killer by the end...way to over the top for that...that part is unbelievable...but its still one of the best by Mann
Kill Bill 2
Slower then 1...the story has a conclusion and should stay there...I do agree with SMCO that Uma always seems like she is doing coke or something with her nose...I guess the Pulp Fiction scenes just have stuck with her
Spiderman 2
Probably the best one...I like the villain the best and the Doc Oc in the hospital scene is sooo Sam Raimi
The Machinist
I always think I am going to see this one again and again...its great...you would never guess it was shot in Spain...the director Brad Anderson I thought would go on to make other great films...but has not...Christian Bale is amazing..the weight loss in crazy...he wins...for years we thought DeNiro was the champ for Raging Bull...but no its Bale...amazingly his next role was batman Begins...so he had to gain tons of muscle and came into preproduction from machinist with too much muscle mass...The Machinist kept me guessing the whole time...it seems like a dark horse film...like an early Chris Nolan film.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Charile Kaufman, script...maybe way too much Jim Carrey for Frank...but Kate Winslet is great...the side characters are great...the story is way confusing...the effects are natural and a funhouse style of cinema art that whiz kid Gondry handles well...while not one of my favorite Kaufman scripts, it still Kaufman and the emotion and skill of Jim Carrey is great...I loved him in Man on the Moon and this is right up there as far as acting.
Primer
Shane Carruth made this film with little money and no other film credits...its so amazing you may never even know its amazing or by the end understand what you just saw...Carruth supposedly is trying to finance his next film (Yes its been 7 years) which is called "A Topiary"...the film is a time travel, business spy type deal.
Anchorman
I think I liked this...but again with comedies...who knows...once I saw this I thought it was great...then saw it about 3 more times...comedies are easily replaceable...easily digested then we move on...you ever really go back and watch comedies from when you were a kid?...today's kids dont get it...Caddy Shack, Vacation, The Blues Brothers...I can go on and on...even Animal House may be dated and that was a period piece...Anchorman had its time...it was one of the best of 2004 but I would not rank it on best all time...even Borat...I mean has anyone watched that since the hype died down?
OK next year 2005...its a toss up year for me but I got to go with the beginning of a franchise over the end of a franchise
BOOM
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