2004 Best Reviewed Movies (Page #9)

After nine years, acclaimed writer/director Mamoru Oshii follows up his cult hit "Ghost in the Shell"—one of the biggest animé successes of all time—with the long-awaited sequel "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence". It is the year 2032 and the line between humans and machines has been blurred almost beyond distinction. Humans have forgotten that they are human and those that are left coexist with cyborgs (human spirits inhabiting entirely mechanized bodies) and dolls (robots with no human elements at all). Batou is a cyborg. His body is artificial: the only remnants left of his humanity are traces of his brain…and the memories of a woman called The Major. A detective for the government's covert anti-terrorist unit, Public Security Section 9, Batou is investigating the case of a gynoid—a hyper-realistic female robot created specifically for sexual companionship—who malfunctions and slaughters her owner. As Batou delves deeper into the investigation, questions arise about humanity's need to immortalize its image in dolls. The answers to those questions lead to the shocking truth behind the crime...and quite possibly the very meaning of life.

Albert Markovski, head of the Open Spaces Coalition, has been experiencing an alarming series of coincidences the meaning of which escapes him. With the help of two Existential Detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe, Albert examines his life, his relationships, and his conflict with Brad Stand, an executive climbing the corporate ladder at Huckabees, a popular chain of retail superstores. When Brad also hires the detectives, they dig deep into his seemingly perfect life and his relationship with his spokes model girlfriend, the voice of Huckabees, Dawn Campbell. Albert pairs up with rebel firefighter Tommy Corn to take matters into their own hands under the guidance of the Jaffes' nemesis, the French radical Caterine Vauban.

This documentary will examine the legendary Loch Ness monster, sometimes known as Nessie. Legendary film director Werner Herzog will spend months shooting at the lake, talking to locals, diving underwater, and examining everything surrounding the mythical beast that may or may not live in one of the world's deepest lakes.

In "Starsky & Hutch", the origins of the charismatic crime-fighting duo David Starsky and Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson are explored when these undercover Bay City detectives are partnered for their very first assignment. Ben Stiller plays the tightly wound Detective David Starsky who is thrown together with Owen Wilson's easygoing Detective Ken Hutchinson on a high-stakes case. Platinum-selling rapper and actor Snoop Dogg plays their savvy street informant Huggy Bear. Vince Vaughn also joins the cast as Reese Feldman, a smooth-talking entrepreneur with an eye towards the future.

"Young Adam" is David McKenzie's adaptation of Alexander Trocchi's novel, a romantic murder mystery set on a barge in the canals of Scotland. Lovely photography by Giles Nuttgens, complemented by a lonely score by David Byrne, provides a picturesque backdrop for what is otherwise a seedy story of morality gone far astray and hopelessness taking hold of everyday life, with sex as the only outlet. Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton both lend excellent performances to the film, acting out a strained relationship of carnal misgiving that is their mutual respite. Working on a barge that travels to ports between Glasgow and Edinburgh, Joe (McGregor) is a randy ol' chap. He befriends Les (Peter Mullen) as they labor hard days shoveling coal and pass their evenings over pints and darts in the local pubs. But Joe is simply positioning himself to seduce Les' wife, Ella (Swinton), who he easily and frequently beds. A steamy affair with a heavy dose of on-screen coitus eventually leads to trouble for all three. A subplot concerns Joe's past romance with a girl (Emily Mortimer) whose mysterious death is reported in local papers, with flashbacks to raunchy sexual interludes representing his fondest memories of her.

Inspired by the true story of a sting operation in Providence, R.I. "The Last Shot" revolves around a young filmmaker (Matthew Broderick) who is given millions of dollars to make his first movie by a mysterious benefactor (Alec Baldwin) on the condition that he shoot it in Providence. But the filmmaker eventually discovers that his film's producer is an undercover FBI agent.

Alain (François Morel) runs a small hi-tech engineering company; he is married to teacher Cecile, and they seem to be a blissfully happy couple. But Alain has come to the conclusion that he's terminally ill. A chronic worrier, he's convinced that some minor symptoms which he's experiencing are the beginning of the end. Alain decides not to tell his wife the bad news. So, on the night she holds a surprise birthday party for him, he goes to see his doctor, a family friend, and makes a lame excuse for this late return home that makes Cecile instantly suspicious. Cecile seeks help from Pascal, who agrees to follow Alain to see if he's meeting another woman. When he does, indeed, see him embrace a young woman (Raphaële Godin) in a city park, he thinks the mystery is solved; but the girl turns out to be Louise, the daughter of Alain and Cecile. Cecile then considers the possibility that Alain is having an affair with his secretary, Claire (Valérie Mairesse), but when Agnes asks her if she can borrow her chalet for a few days because she's met a man, Cecile immediately assumes that Agnes is her husband's secret mistress. But by this time Alain has come to the conclusion that Cecile is hiding something from him. The two begin to lie to each other and suspect one another as their paranoid delusions escalate.

The story of Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a visitor to New York from Eastern Europe, whose homeland erupts in a fiery coup while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at Kennedy Airport with a passport from nowhere, he is unauthorized to actually enter the United States and must improvise his days and nights in the terminal's international transit lounge until the war at home is over. As the weeks and months stretch on, Viktor finds the compressed universe of the terminal to be a richly complex world of absurdity, generosity, ambition, amusement, status, serendipity and even romance with a beautiful flight attendant named Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones). But Viktor has long worn out his welcome with airport official Frank Dixon, who considers him a bureaucratic glitch, a problem he cannot control but wants desperately to erase.

"Good girl" Mary (Jena Malone) can't believe it when she gets pregnant by her newly-gay boyfriend. She also can't believe the actions of her popular, relentlessly devout best friend, Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), who's looking after her wheelchair-bound brother Roland (Macaulay Culkin), attempting to convert adamantly Jewish Cassandra (Eva Amurri), and trying to snag cute newcomer Patrick (Patrick Fugit), a hip skateboarding missionary. By the time Mary's secret is revealed, Hilary Faye has gone to extremes to get the outsiders expelled from school, with spectacular results, and Mary is forced to decide what's worth believing in the first place. In this dark comedy, a young, talented cast comes together to get "Saved".

Peter Colt (Paul Bettany) is an unlucky guy, scoring "love" both professionally and personally. Seeded near the bottom of the world tennis ranks, he manages to score a wild card, allowing him to play in the prestigious Wimbledon tournament. There, he meets and falls in love with American tennis star Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst). Fueled by a mixture of his newfound luck, love and on-court prowess, Peter works his way up the ranks of the tournament players and actually stands a chance of fulfilling his lifelong dream of winning the men's singles title—if his luck can just hold out.

Set against the turbulent political backdrop of France in the spring of 1968 when the voice of youth was reverberating around Europe, "The Dreamers" is a story of self-discovery as the three students test each other to see just how far they will go. Left alone in Paris whilst their parents are on holiday, Isabelle (Eva Green) and her brother Theo (Louis Garrel) invite Matthew (Michael Pitt), a young American student, to stay at their apartment. Here they make their own rules as they experiment with their emotions and sexuality while playing a series of increasingly demanding mind games.

Joe Rose has planned an intimate picnic in the English countryside with his girlfriend Claire (Samantha Morton). The afternoon is meant to be special; he has brought wine and a ring…he is about to propose. The afternoon is suddenly interrupted when a hot-air balloon plunges from the sky—a young boy trapped within its basket. Joe and three other men instinctually run to the rescue. Yet in their attempt to save the child and pull the sky-bound balloon to the ground, one of the men meets a spectacular and totally unpredictable death. Determined to understand what happened to cause this tragedy, Joe returns to his life as a rational, scientific-minded professor. Yet he cannot escape constant thoughts of the balloon incident.

"The Missing" is the story of Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett), a young woman raising her two daughters in an isolated and lawless wilderness. When her oldest daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) is kidnapped by a psychopathic killer with mystical powers (Eric Schweig), Maggie is forced to re-unite with her long estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones) to rescue her. The killer and his brutal cult of desperados have kidnapped several other teenage girls, leaving a trail of death and horror across the desolate landscape of the American Southwest. Maggie and her father are in a race against time to catch up with the renegades and save her daughter, before they cross the Mexican border and disappear forever.