Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide 2004 [antikvár]

Introduction to 2004 Edition Are movies getting vkiorse? I used to be an optimist, but I find it difficult to retain that positive outlook as I look over the new entries we've compiled for this edition. I was amused when, during the Oscar race, people said what a good year it had been. Did they really mean a good year, or a good month'} All five of this year's Best Picture nominees were released at the end of December (and even some of those were really January movies that snuck in under the wire). Other award contenders seemed to be clustered toward the end of the year as well: Far from Heaven, Adaptation., About Schmidt. Yes, there were good films earlier in the year: Insomnia, The Bourne Identity, One Hour Photo, The Good Girl, Road to Perdition, White Oleander, Secretary, and Bloody Sunday come to mind. Some other good movies didn't get the attention they deserved, like 24 Hour Party People, Skins, Cherish, Sunshine State, Heaven, The Man from Elysian Fields, and Comedian. One of the finest films of 2002, Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her, was denied an 0?car nomination when Spain chose not to submit it as its official entry. Fortunately, Academy members voted it the Best Original Screenplay award. They also recognized Caroline Link's wonderful Nowhere in Africa as Best Foreign Language Film, but the equally worthy Brazilian film City of God didn't get a nomination. Still, that's a pretty short list considering how many films were released last year, and it's hard to think of more than a few titles that stand out this year so far. At a time when shows like Are You Hot? and I'm a Celebrity—Get Me Out of Here exist as mass entertainment, I suppose we should be grateful for the few really good films that do come our way. To find a mainstream Hollywood studio movie as intelligent, well crafted, and entertaining as The Bourne Identity is a breath of firesh air, just as it's invigorating to see films made on minuscule budgets like Tadpole and Personal Velocity that win us over with good writing and excellent performances. But excellence is not an absolute: it's a matter of opinion, as always. I found Gangs of New York exciting to watch; others couldn't stand it. People are falling over themselves with praise for Chicago, but I had some reservations about it. Even today's dumb comedies are dumber and cruder than they used to r be. But as long as there's diversity on the moviegoing menu (A Mighty I Wind as well as Boat Trip), then I suppose we can all survive. It's just a shame that the gulf seems to be ever-widening between the best movies and the most popular. (There are always a few happy exceptions, like The Lord of the Rings.) What has all of this to do with a reference book such as ours? I'd like to think that by listing such a variety of titles, both old and new, good and bad, we can lead people to good films they may have missed, and pique their curiosity about movies they've never seen. I teach a class at USC that attracts 350 students every semester from all parts of the campus; we have football players and wrestlers as well as cinema majors. This group of 20-somethings, from a wide range of social [ix]