2004 Best Reviewed Movies (Page #6)

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.

Based on the award-winning Saturday morning cartoon, it's the story about a dog named Spot, but that's where the ordinariness ends. Spot (voiced by Nathan Lane) is a talking dog that has taught himself to read. Wanting to further his education and experience new adventures, he disguises himself as a boy and sneaks into the same school where his master, Leonard, (Shaun Flemming) attends, and becomes the teacher's pet.

After being found in an intimate, sexual encounter with another young man, Perry is thrown out of his house by his family and forced to survive on his own. As he struggles to hold on by working in a homeless shelter and trying to maintain a college scholarship, he is haunted by his homosexuality and becomes increasingly withdrawn due to his family's rejection of him and their condemnation of his desires. As his friend Marcus is performing his new poetry for him, an elderly man, Bruce, appears seemingly out of nowhere and begins reciting verse to them. He disappears just as quickly and elusively as he arrived, before they get a chance to talk to him. In his library research for a class project, Perry finds a book about the Harlem Renaissance and recognizes a poem ("Smoke, Lilies and Jade" by Bruce Nugent) as the same one that the elderly man was reciting. They encounter each other again at the homeless shelter where Perry works. He confronts Bruce about who he is and begins to ask him about the Harlem Renaissance. They go on a literal and metaphorical journey to the house that was known as "Niggeratti Manor" which was the creative center for the younger, rebellious generation of the Harlem Renaissance as they created their revolutionary literary journal, "Fire!". Although the house is now dilapidated, we are transported through the landscape of Bruce's memories of the glory days of the Harlem Renaissance. Perry learns about the lives and personalities of Wallace Thurman, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Aaron Douglas and sees how they became a surrogate family for Bruce. Perry begins to recognize this era as his history. He sees the pride that Bruce exuded in those times in terms of being Black, gay and unashamed. His pride and self-esteem begin to have an empowering effect on Perry as he gains a stronger sense of his identity. As the story progresses, we witness the transformative power that they have on each other's lives through their shared passion for art and storytelling.

Two likeable underdogs, Harold and Kumar, set out on a Friday night quest to satisfy their craving for White Castle hamburgers and end up on an epic journey of deep thoughts, deeper inhaling and a wild road trip as un-PC as it gets.

This ensemble comedy of 11 interwoven stories set in Dublin shows how the breakup of one relationship has repurcussions on the lives of the people around them. One of those people is Lehiff (Colin Farrell), a thief trying to set his life straight by pulling off one last big heist before retiring, while Detective John Lynch (Colm Meaney) is trying to bring Lehiff down. There's also John (Cillian Murphy), who quits his job at a supermarket to join Lehiff in his plot as an effort to win back the love of Deirdre (Kelly MacDonald), who has recently moved in with a married bank manager, Sam (Michael McElhatton), whose bank Lehiff is targeting, and whose wife, Noeleen (Deirdre O'Kane) ends up being a crucial element in the heist.

A widowed schoolteacher flees Nazi-occupied Paris with her children, and encounters a teenage boy who steers them into the forest -- their best shot at survival.

An exploration of a sustained and well-funded effort to discredit and defeat Bill Clinton, dating from his gubernatorial days in Arkansas and eventually leading to his impeachment trial.

Winner of over 22 film festival awards, "Robot Stories" is science fiction from the heart, four stories in which utterly human characters struggle to connect in a world of robot babies and android office workers. The stories include: "My Robot Baby," in which a couple must care for a robot baby before adopting a human child; "The Robot Fixer," in which a mother tries to connect with her dying son by completing his toy robot collection; "Machine Love," in which an office worker android learns that he, too, needs love; and "Clay," in which an old sculptor must choose between natural death and digital immortality.

At night and on weekends, four men in a suburban garage have built a cottage industry of error-checking devices. But, they know that there is something more. There is some idea, some mechanism, some accidental side effect that is standing between them and a pure leap of innovation. And so, through trial and error they are building the device that is missing most. However, two of these men find the device and immediately realize that it is too valuable to market. The limit of their trust in each other is strained when they are faced with the question, If you always want what you can't have, what do you want when you can have anything?

Andre Stander was a smooth-talking jailbreaker, thrill addict and master of disguise. He was also a high-ranking officer in South Africa's Apartheid-era police force who became an outlaw hero when he launched a second career as a bank robber. Stander's sensationalized activities won him celebrity status by the time of his first arrest for twenty-six robberies. After he daringly escapes from prison and forms the Stander gang with fellow escapees Allan Heyl and Patrick Lee McCall, the three men set off to crumble the status quo and capitalize on the chaos.

It is the 1940s and the Czech lands have been occupied by the Nazis. Eliska is a young woman who was unable to complete medical school because the Germans closed the universities and now works as a nurse in a city hospital. She is also involved in the resistance movement along with her lover, the surgeon Richard, and their friend Dr. Chldek. One night, a man from a rural mountain area is brought to the hospital with serious injuries and desperately needs a transfusion. Eliska is the only one with the same blood type. Her blood saves his life and a connection is formed between the two that in the course of the story becomes an extraordinarily strong relationship between the modern, cosmopolitan, and educated Eliska and the barbaric, salt of the earth man with the soul of a child, Joza. The resistance group that the doctors are involved in is discovered and hunted by the Gestapo and suddenly their lives are threatened. While Eliska's lover, Richard, flees the country overnight, the group quickly has to find a different safe haven for her. They ask Joza, the patient whose life she saved with her blood, to hide her in his remote mountain cabin. Eliska is forced to leave her urban life and all at once become a new woman: Hana, the wife of a mountain man. Her new home is the wild mountain village where time stopped one hundred and fifty years ago called Zelary.

From the rural town of Preston, Idaho, comes Napoleon Dynamite. With a red 'fro, his moon boots and illegal government ninja moves, he is a new kind of hero. His family consists of fragile brother Kip, who's seeking his soul mate in online chat rooms; Uncle Rico, who is stuck in his "glory" days of high school football; and Grandma, who enjoys going out to the dunes on her quad-runner. Napoleon spends his days drawing magical beasts, working on his computer hacking skills to impress the chicks, and begrudgingly feeding his grandma's pet llama. When his friend Pedro decides to run for class president, it is Napoleon to the rescue to help him triumph over adversity.

Based on the bestselling book series by Daniel Handler, the "Snicket" saga revolves around a pint-sized trio of orphans named Sunny, Klaus and Violet who find themselves fobbed off on a series of odd people, including Lemony Snicket, who narrates each of what has grown to a series of eight books since Handler debuted the first title in 1999. The recurring bad guy is a distant family relative named Count Olaf, who initially takes in the kids but clearly is trying to separate them from a family inheritance.