2004 Best Reviewed Movies (Page #5)

The story is based on the life of serial killer Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron), who was executed Oct. 9, 2002, after murdering at least six Florida men while working as a prostitute. In her 1992 trial, Wuornos pleaded innocent, saying she acted in self-defense to prevent being raped, a statement she later recanted. The film centers on Wuornos' life before the murders and her romantic relationship with Selby (Christina Ricci), a woman she dated while still turning tricks and killing men.

Kurt Russell stars as coach Herb Brooks in the story of how the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team toppled the seemingly invincible Soviet Union squad to capture the gold medal. A former U.S. player himself, Brooks was the last skater to be cut from the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, the most recent one to win the gold medal before Brooks became the team coach. He cobbled together a group of players and taught them to excel at the European game. Even so, the Russian team had won four consecutive gold medals and was so good that it defeated a team of National Hockey League all-stars. The U.S. team wasn't expected to even make the medal rounds. But led by Brooks, the team defeated the Soviet Union in the semifinal round, then bested Finland in the finals to win the gold.

U.S. Army Major Bennett Marco can't sleep at night—and he doesn't want to. Marco spends his days giving inspiring speeches about his platoon's ambush in the Kuwaiti desert and the heroics of Sergeant Raymond Shaw, who won the Medal of Honor for saving Marco's crew. But at night, Marco's dreamlike memories of the desert turn sinister and terrifying. And Marco privately wonders whether the two soldiers who died in the firefight might have met darker fates than officially recorded—and whether Shaw might not be the glorious hero that everyone thinks he is. When Shaw takes the national stage as a surefire candidate for vice president—under the thumb of his controversial mother, Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw—Marco is forced to act on his growing suspicions. With military officials questioning his sanity, and the net of security tightening around Shaw, Marco races to probe deeper into the unimaginable, shocking truth before the White House is won.

Born in a poor town in Georgia, Ray Charles went blind at the age of seven shortly after witnessing his younger brother's accidental death. Inspired by a fiercely independent mother who insisted he make his own way in the world, Charles found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered incorporating gospel, country, jazz and orchestral influences into his inimitable style. As he revolutionized the way people appreciated music, he simultaneously fought segregation in the very clubs that launched him and championed artists' rights within the corporate music business. "Ray" provides an unflinching portrait of Charles' musical genius as he overcomes drug addiction while transforming into one of this country's most beloved performers.

Set in France near the end of World War I in the deadly trenches of the Somme, in the gilded Parisien halls of power, and in the modest home of an indomitable provincial girl and her relentless search to find her fiancée, who has disappeared. He is one of five French soldiers believed to have been court-martialed under mysterious circumstances and pushed out of an allied trench into an almost-certain death in no-man's land. All an investigation into the arbitrary nature of secrecy, the absurdity of war, and the enduring passion, intuition and tenacity of the human heart.

An epic adventure of discovery, survival and wonder, "Two Brothers" is the story of twin tiger brothers who are born amidst the temple ruins and exotic jungles of French Indo-China. Separated as cubs and taken into captivity, one tiger is forced to become a circus performer, the other a trained killer. Years later, the brothers find themselves reunited, but as forced enemies pitted against each other. "Two Brothers" stars Guy Pearce as a romantic explorer whose tragic intervention into the idyllic lives of the two tiger brothers forever intertwines their fates.

Anne Reid stars as May, an ordinary grandmother from the North of England. When her husband dies on a family visit to London, she recedes into the background of her busy, metropolitan children's lives. Stuck in an unfamiliar city, far from home, May fears that she has become another invisible old lady whose life is more or less over. Until, that is, she embarks on a passionate affair with Darren (Daniel Craig), a man half her age who is renovating her son's house and sleeping with her daughter.

A documentary about the rise and fall of Troy Duffy, a bartender whose script for "The Boondock Saints" was picked up by Harvey Weinstein of Miramax and made into a film. Duffy subsequently burns every bridge and alienates most of his friends.

Team America, an international police force dedicated to maintaining global stability, learns that a power hungry dictator is brokering weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. The heroes embark upon a harrowing mission to save the world. To infiltrate the terrorist network, Team America recruits Gary Johnston, a rising star on Broadway to go undercover. Although initially reluctant to sacrifice his promising career, Gary realizes that his acting gift is needed for a higher cause. With the help of Team America leader Spotswoode and fellow members Chris, Sarah, Lisa and Joe, Gary slips into an arms dealer's hideout where he discovers that the terrorists' plot has already begun to unfold. From the pyramids of Cairo to the Panama Canal and finally to the palace of power-mad dictator Kim Jong-Il, Team America criss-crosses the globe on a desperate mission to preserve the very fabric of civilization.

Trevor Reznik, a machinist, has lost the ability to sleep. But this is no ordinary insomnia. Trevor has not slept in a year. Fatigue has led to a shocking deterioration of his physical and mental health. Suspicious of his appearance, Trevor's co-workers first shy away from him, then turn against him after he's involved in a shop accident that costs a man his arm. They blame Trevor for the accident. He has become a liability to himself and others, and now they want him out. Plagued with guilt, Trevor's shame becomes suspicion, then paranoia, when it appears his workmates are conspiring to have him fired –- or worse. First he finds cryptic notes left in his apartment. Next he's told that a mysterious co-worker involved in the accident doesn't exist. Are these mysteries part of a plot to drive Trevor mad? Or is it fatigue that's robbing him of his reason? Determined to find an answer, Trevor investigates the strange occurrences that are turning his world into a sleepless nightmare. Yet the more he learns, the less he wants to know.

Tale of amorous folly and revenge set in the world of the London stage in the late 1930's. Reigning diva Julia Lambert's success and fame grow suddenly wearisome. She falls head over heels for a young American, Tom, and begins a passionate May - December affair. When she realizes that Tom is just a young social climber whose real passion is ambitious young starlet Avice Crichton, Julia begins to plot a delightful revenge.

In June 1940, as politicians, journalists, society figures, demi-mondaines and spies from all sides all meet up at the Hotel Splendide in Bordeaux, a young man has to choose between a famous actress and an impassioned student, between politicians and hoodlums, between insouciance and adulthood.

In the heartwarming film "Big Fish", director Tim Burton brings his inimitable imagination on a journey that delves deep into a fabled relationship between a father and his son. Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) has always been a teller of tall-tales about his oversized life as a young man (Ewan McGregor), when his wanderlust led him on an unlikely journey from a small-town in Alabama, around the world, and back again. His mythic exploits dart from the delightful to the delirious as he weaves epic tales about giants, blizzards, a witch and conjoined-twin lounge singers. With his larger-than-life stories, Bloom charms almost everyone he encounters except for his estranged son Will (Billy Crudup). When his mother Sandra (Jessica Lange) tries to reunite them, Will must learn how to separate fact from fiction as he comes to terms with his father's great feats and great failings.

Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Webber and Mekhi Phifer head an ensemble cast in a re-envisioning of George Romero's apocalyptic horror classic, "Dawn of the Dead". An unexplained plague has decimated the world's population and yet...the dead aren't dying. They've become zombies, stalking endlessly in a constant quest to feed on the flesh and blood of the few remaining living. A ragtag group of desperate survivors in a Wisconsin town seek refuge in a large indoor mall, where they must learn not only to protect themselves from the ever-increasing zombie horde, but also to co-exist with each other as a last bastion of humanity. Sealed off from the rest of what used to be the world, the group uses every available resource—both within and without—in their against-all-odds fight to remain alive and human.