Listmania!
Top 10 films 2004
By an Amazon.com customer
House of Flying Daggers [Blu-ray]House of Flying Daggers [Blu-ray]
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $8.87
More successful than Zhang's "Hero" because, while it shares the same love of color and staging of action, HOUSE is more imaginative and its romantic sweep is unabashed.
Kill Bill - Volume Two [Blu-ray]Kill Bill - Volume Two [Blu-ray]
Buy new: $16.99 / Used from: $14.82
Packs the action wallop of Vol. 1 (love that fight between Thurman and Hannah in the trailer), but it has moments of sharp, emotional resonance such as Michael Madsen's Bud's resigned lament: "That woman deserves her revenge... and we deserve to die."
Sideways (Widescreen Edition)Sideways (Widescreen Edition)
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $0.70
Maybe the central romance isn't believable once you think about it, but it is in context. The humor and the acting make it work. And it's funny too.
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Widescreen Edition)Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Widescreen Edition)
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $2.50
The first of Kaufman's tricky screenplays to be more than that. Its structure actually makes the heart inside it beat stronger.
Before SunsetBefore Sunset
Buy new: $14.49 / Used from: $1.86
For the final sequences alone.
The Incredibles (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)The Incredibles (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $4.50
It all works: The humor, action and storytelling. But how about that design? Like the coolest thing you could ever dream up as a kid.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - Criterion CollectionThe Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - Criterion Collection
Buy new: $18.99 / Used from: $4.99
First viewing may make you wonder, "What was that?" But a second viewing, while still appreciating the obsession to production detail, gets you laughing. And, for me, Bill Murray makes me laugh by just entering the scene.
The Bourne Supremacy (Widescreen Edition)The Bourne Supremacy (Widescreen Edition)
Buy new: $11.49 / Used from: $1.57
The intensity heats up and that final car sequence in the tunnel is one of the most realistic - metal hitting metal, and feeling like it counts - in recent years.
I'll Sleep When I'm DeadI'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Buy used from: $1.71
The best Clive Owen has been so far in a story that strongly resembles Hodges' "Get Carter." Not as brutal as the '71 film, but more inside the sad psyche of it all.
Blind ShaftBlind Shaft
Buy new: $26.99 / Used from: $5.09
Brutal, with a layer of evil seeping into your skin like soot.