It was the year that NASA confirmed that Mars had once been drenched in water. The year a whale exploded in Tainan City, Taiwan. The year that Michael Schumacher won his seventh Formula One World Drivers Championship, making him the most successful driver in the history of Formula One. The year was 2004.
Facebook was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Marriage licenses were issued to same-sex couples in San Francisco, California. And all across Ireland, smoking was banned in restaurants, pubs and bars. Sadly, 2004 was also the year we said goodbye to former Superman star Christopher Reeve and legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith. But on the bright side, many magnificent movies were released.
2004 was a classic year for comedy. Gung ho marionettes battled terrorist hordes and left wing celebrities in Team America: World Police, a twisted puppet parody of action flicks full of nasty sex, hardcore swearing and silly fight sequences. A priceless celebration of nerdery in all of its awkward glory, Napoleon Dynamite was a fresh and distinctive rites-of-passage comedy with a classic cast of oddballs and many memorable comic surprises. And then there was Shrek 2, the best of the four by far, not least because it introduced heroic hairball Puss-in-Boots, both smoothly and hilariously voiced by Antonio Banderas.
It was also rather a bloody year, thanks largely to Saw, a mental and emotional rollercoaster ride that was as fiendishly inventive as it was gory as hell. But then, Dead Man’s Shoes was no picnic, a tale of "human justice" starring Paddy Considine as a disaffected soldier with a powerful grudge against a gang of thugs. Equally vengeful was Tom Jane as The Punisher, an underrated actioner which followed the Marvel Comics’ vigilante as he dished out cold and brutal but darkly amusing justice. Also from the Marvel stable but significantly less violent was Sam Raimi’s superhero masterpiece Spider-Man 2, the best of his three, with Spidey battling the dastardly Doc Ock.
A trio of flight-themed flicks to finish this week, starting with The Terminal, a sweet, feel good drama from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks that tells the witty, whimsical and strange-but-true tale of an Eastern European man stuck without a passport in JFK airport, forced by circumstance to make it his home.
Next, Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator was a sprawling biopic of legendary filmmaker and flyboy Howard Hughes starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the man himself and Best Supporting Actress Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett as screen icon Katharine Hepburn.
Finally, a shimmering yet moody art deco dream inspired by the pulp fantasy magazines of the Thirties and Forties, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow remains a rip-roaring sci-fi adventure with the most incredible, audacious and frankly gorgeous visuals ever committed to film. A true original. "Could we just for once die without all this bickering?"
Guest blogger: Marshall Julius
