2004 Best Reviewed Movies (Page #4)

During the early 1960s, Paris was an explosion of life. As the old gave way to the new, everything was in flux and the city was filled with an energy that promised cultural shifts and social change. Against this background, in a working class neighborhood, two unlikely characters--a young Jew and an elderly Muslim--begin a friendship. When we meet Moise, also known as Momo, he is in effect an orphan even tough he lives with prostitutes who treat him with genuine affection. Momo buys his groceries at the neighborhood shop, a crowded dark space owned and run by Ibrahim, a silent exotic looking man who sees and knows more than he lets on. After Momo is abandoned by his father, Ibrahim becomes the one grownup in Momo's life. Together they begin a journey that will change their lives forever.

In "Mean Girls", Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) is raised in the African wilderness by her zoologist parents but finds life gets a lot rougher when she moves to the city and begins high school. After dating the ex-boyfriend of the school's most popular girl, forces align against her.

This is the story of two brothers in Glasgow, Harbour (Adrian Rawlins) and Wilbur (Jamie Sives), who inherit a used bookstore. The brothers discover that a chance encounter with a cleaning lady at the local hospital, Alice (Shirley Henderson), who's the single mother of a little girl, Mary (Lisa McKinlay), prompts them to reconsider the choices they've made in life, which might change all four of their lives.

It all begins as successful Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie watches his latest play open to a ho-hum reaction among the polite society of Edwardian England. A literary genius of his times but bored by the same old themes, Barrie is clearly in need of some serious inspiration. Unexpectedly, he finds it one day during his daily walk with his St. Bernard Porthos in London's Kensington Gardens. There, Barrie encounters the Llewelyn Davies family: four fatherless boys and their beautiful, recently widowed mother. Despite the disapproval of the boys' steely grandmother Emma du Maurier and the resentment of his own wife, Barrie befriends the family, engaging the boys in tricks, disguises, games and sheer mischief, creating play-worlds of castles and kings, cowboys and Indians, pirates and castaways. He transforms hillsides into galleon ships, sticks into mighty swords, kites into enchanted fairies and the Llewelyn Davies boys into "The Lost Boys of Neverland." From the sheer thrills and adventurousness of childhood will come Barrie's most daring and renowned masterwork, "Peter Pan." At first, his theatrical company is skeptical. While his loyal producer Charles Frohman worries he'll lose his shirt on this children's fantasy, Barrie begins rehearsals only to shock his actors with such unprecedented requests as asking them to fly across the stage, talk to fairies made out of light and don dog and crocodile costumes. Then, just as Barrie is ready to introduce the world to "Peter Pan," a tragic twist of fate will make the writer and those he loves most understand just what it means to really believe.

Based on the respective diaries of two Argentines, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (later known as "El Che") and Alberto Granado, the new film from award-winning director Walter Salles follows a journey of self-discovery, tracing the origins of a revolutionary heart. In January 1952, Ernesto and Alberto set out on a road trip to discover the real Latin America. Ernesto (Gael Garcia Bernal) is a 23 year-old medical student specializing in leprology, and Alberto (Rodrigo de la Serna) is a 29 year-old biochemist. With a highly romantic sense of adventure, the two friends leave their familiar Buenos Aires surroundings on a rickety 1939 Norton 500. Their experiences awaken within them the men they will later become by defining the ethical and political journey that they will take in their lives.

It's a summer holiday weekend in Paris and Antoine and Hélène are on their way to pick up their children at summer camp, thus joining thousands of other vacationers on the highways to the south of France. At first in high spirits, the couple starts sniping at each other during the drive as tensions in their relationship bubble to the surface. Frustrated by the freeway, Antoine takes a byway detour, much to Helene's displeasure, and then leaves her in the car as he stops for a drink. Once they're back on the road, their bickering escalates, with Antoine blaming Hélène for his drinking. Antoine then stops again to continue drinking at another tavern, although this time, Helene warns that she won't be there when he gets back. Still he defies her and goes into the bar, taking the car keys with him. He panics when he leaves the bar and discovers she has left. Believing that she has taken the train, he drives like a madman to the next station, but upon his arrival, the last train is mid-pulling out of the station. Driving away in a state of dread, he picks up a strange hitchhiker—not knowing he might have already crossed the path of his soon-to-be-missing wife.

Michael Moore examines what happened to the United States after September 11; and how the Bush Administration used the tragic event to push its agenda. It's a documentary that will trace why the U.S. has become a target for hatred and terrorism. It will also depict alleged dealings between two generations of the Bush and Bin Laden clans that led to George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden becoming mortal enemies.

Two years ago, Jason Bourne thought he had walked away from his past. But now, his past is about to return. Bourne and Marie have maintained their anonymous, underground existence at the cost of permanence. Fueled by splintered nightmares and haunted by the past he cannot remember, Bourne moves Marie from city to city, trying to remain one step ahead of the threat implicit in every unexplained stranger's glance, every wrong number phone call—that at any second, without any warning, he might get pulled back into the world he hopes he left behind. When an operative appears in the sleepy village that has been their latest home, Bourne and Marie collapse their lives and head out. His past at the door, their only chance now is to run. But once a line is crossed and the stakes in a new global game of cat-and-mouse are raised, the Jason Bourne created by Treadstone—the covert, now dismantled operation that spawned cold-blooded, professional assassins—returns. Two years ago, Bourne walked away from the deadly world that created him with a promise of retaliation should anyone attempt contact. Now that that world has indeed come calling, Bourne intends to keep his word. They should have left him alone.

From Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer and Imagine Entertainment and based on the best-selling book about high school football by H.G. Bissinger, "Friday Night Lights" chronicles the entire 1988 season of the Permian High Panthers of Odessa, Texas, with football players, coaches, mothers, fathers, pastors, boosters, fans and families struggling with ongoing personal conflicts while the team fights for a state championship. A town for sale, Odessa, Texas has seen better days--the financial bust evident in its boarded-up shops and broken lives. Yet one hope sustains the community where, once a week during the fall, the town and its dreams come alive beneath the dazzling and disorienting Friday night lights...when the Permian High Panthers take to the field. In a city where economic uncertainty has eroded the spirit of its inhabitants, nearly everyone seeks comfort in the religion of the Friday night ritual, where the unfulfilled dreams of an entire community are shifted onto the shoulder pads of a team of high-school athletes. "Friday Night Lights" captures the frenzy of a small town that reveres its school team and their weekly games.

From visionary writer/director Guillermo Del Toro ("Blade II", "The Devil's Backbone") comes "Hellboy", a supernatural action adventure based on Mike Mignola's popular Dark Horse Comics series of the same name. Born in the flames of hell, and brought to our world in a pagan ritual, the fierce red hero, Hellboy (Ron Perlman), was saved by his friend and mentor, the benevolent Dr. Broom (John Hurt). Raised in Broom's Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, Hellboy joins the likes of the "Mer-Man" Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), the woman he loves who can psychically control fire, and Myers, the FBI agent who is his rival for Liz's affections. Together, our heroes must come to terms with fantastic powers that prove to be both a blessing and a curse. In the process they discover that their abilities serve to benefit mankind but may also keep them forever isolated from the society that only they can protect.