HTF Top 10's of 2004: Time To Throw Down! (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

I don't know about others, but for me it was a drastically changing living situation. I went from living in a house with a car to living in a single room with no means of personal transportation. The Rochester bus system runs a bus to the movies on Friday and Saturdays, but the convience factor means I've severely cut back on my moviegoing.

 

[ToddP]

Revised list to insert Garden State at #7. This bumps Spidey out of the top 10. It's late to be editing but I'm still seeing things.

 

[Brook K]

I've now seen Hero, so am up to 23 of 30 and 106 total. No changes in top 10.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Damn, how can you diss your boy by leaving off the thread he created that kicked this whole thing off in the first place?

My original "Time to throw down" for the 2000 films is still here at HTF.

Here are the totals we came up with that year, based on the thread. I need to look up my scoring XL sheet to see if I had a more final set of totals, though this was already into June or July.

By Total Points (10 for 1, 9 for 2,... 1 for 10)
336 - Traffic
321 - CTHD
283 - Almost Famous
279 - Requiem for a Dream
169 - High Fidelity

144 - You Can Count on Me
139 - Gladiator
124 - Dancer in the Dark
119 - Wonder Boys
117 - Oh Brother, WAT?
95 - Erin B (after this the points drop to the 50s)

Top 10 Appearances
46 - Traffic
44 - CTHD
43 - Almost Famous
36 - Requiem for a Dream
36 - High Fidelity

Best Average Rank (5 appearances minimum)
8.0 - Yi Yi
7.8 - Requiem
7.3 - Traffic
7.3 - CTHD
7.3 - Dancer in the Dark

 

[Seth Paxton]

I appreciate that Dana, but as you know the real credit goes to whomever does all the work on these things. The AFI revote and this were both fun but quite time consuming. I'm better able to enjoy the results when they are based on other's work, so thanks right back at you.

 

[Dana Fillhart]

Me again, back from the dead ... okay, not literally, but I've been kind-of away doing a LOT of things still for work (in my free time, sadly), and haven't had a lot of time to get to updating the stats. I'll have some free time either tomorrow or Wednesday to get the new member posts, the updated ones, the 6 or 7 full lists I skipped, and Edwin's correct totals () all in.

Thanks, Seth, too. You're right - it IS very time consuming. No matter how you slice it you always have to manually figure out which films a member has seen and make sure the tally goes into the right stack, so to speak. In my case that means entering new films into my database and then for each member checking off which ones they've seen in a given year - seems simple, but each new film I have to enter in the database takes about 1-2 minutes to look up the official title (I go by imdb.com), enter the title, the genre, the release type (film festival, theatrical/limited, theatrical/wide, etc.), and year-category - oh, and the year can be *extremely* tricky at times, because some people will have it listed as a 2004 film but it really came out in 2003 or 2002, or that it was shown at a film festival in 2003 but went to limited release in 2004, which means I have to search my database BEFORE creating the film to make sure it hasn't already been entered, and then update the year-category if it moved from film-festival to limited release ... and on and on it goes, and all that time keeps adding up!

But as you said, it IS a lot of fun, especially when it's all said and done, and I get to run the report each time I finish checking off a member's film list - it's fun to watch which films start off in the top 10 with only a handful of members, and then how it changes by the time I get to 50 and more members. In this case, #1 pretty much hit that spot out of the gate and didn't slack up once, but the others have jockeyed for their positions all the way 'til about the last 15 or so entries I entered.

Anyway ... I hope to get another stats update soon. Stay tuned!

 

[Seth Paxton]

Maybe we should work up an interactive page where people could enter their viewings and rankings into a standarized system, thus breaking the work up among all the members.

Even having people submit a list in a standard form is not enough due to the various naming conventions (and year of entry) standards that they follow. That's why you basically need to have a central list where they could click check boxes for "have seen" and then enter a ranking for any top 10 film.


Maybe a simplier idea would be to post an "official" list of all films up for consideration for that film year with their "proper" names used. Then people could edit that list by deleting out films they didn't see and moving their top 10 to the top of the list with a cut and paste.

That would take zero programming. Of course you would still have an issue with on-going updates in that case.

 

[Rob Willey]

Added Hotel Rwanda and shook up my top ten a little bit (sorry, Dana).

Rob

 

[Arman]

Did one last major revamp in my Top 10 after seeing 2046 (#2) & Bad Education (#3 - it is indeed a very complex film. But no need a second viewing for me to declare it as another masterpiece by Almodovar!). I no longer consider Million Dollar Baby as one of my 10 best films of 2004. [ I'm unsure with Spike Lee's She Hate. Need to watch that one again]

 

[Dana Fillhart]

Finally have some free time - I'm going through all the lists again, updating them, and will be posting the updates later this afternoon or evening.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Top 10 readjusted to reflect current standing of Million Dollar Baby.

~Edwin

 

[Dana Fillhart]

Okay, I finally have the latest & greatest stats. I have all lists entered and up to date as of now except 2: I still don't have all of Michael Perez's and Scott Weinberg's entered - good lord, guys, you see way too many
films - and obscure ones too!

Some notes:

Edwin, I got your change for M$B, also you have 79 listed in your alphebetical listing, not 80; Nick Sievers, you have 106 not 108; Elizabeth, you have 2 in your Top 10 you don't have in your 2004 Film List (I didn't include the 6 or 7 at the bottom, so you have 73, not 71) - also I assumed for "Rewind" you meant the 2003 Film "Videoreul boneun namja", not the 2002 Sci-Fi or the 2003 French film, (R)évolutions or the 2004 Short - I always use the original-language name and put the International/English title in parenthesis beside it (also listing the director beside the film also helps narrow it down when I search for it in IMDB); ChrisBEA, your total is 1 off because I couldn't classify "Oscar Shorts"; Mark Pfeiffer, I'm assuming "Fade to Black" is the Jay-Z documentary and not one of the 8 other entries IMDB has for that title, and that "Mickey's The Three Musketeers" is the direct-to-video "Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers" - also I couldn't find an entry for "Brothers in Arms: The Story of the Crew of Patrol Craft Fast 94" in IMDB so your total is 249 not 250; Stevan Lay, I'm assuming "Spy Girl" is "Geunyeoreul moreumyeon gancheob (Spygirl)", and "Jiang hu" is "Gong wu" officially on IMDB.

If anybody else's totals are off, let me know and I'll fix it when I post the next update (which WILL have Mike's and Scott's).

The Top 30 of Our Top 10 of 2004
Contributing, Qualifying Members:[COLOR= gold]58[/COLOR]
Includes all member updates through:[COLOR= gold]27 Feb 2005[/COLOR] # Film Total Score Fractional Weighted Total Top 10 List Appearances : 2004 List Appearances Weighted Average Unweighted Average 1 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 341 40.36 46 : 50 7.40 5.87 2 The Incredibles 246 29.86 37 : 47 6.65 4.24 3 Sideways 174 22.95 28 : 34 6.20 2.99 4 Kill Bill: Vol. 2 160 22.70 27 : 39 5.93 2.76 5 Million Dollar Baby 146 18.95 22 : 29 6.61 2.51 6 Spider-Man 2 143 17.13 22 : 46 6.50 2.47 7 The Aviator 134 19.89 25 : 30 5.36 2.31 8 Before Sunset 133 16.52 18 : 22 7.39 2.29 9 Garden State 113 16.52 21 : 37 5.38 1.95 10 Finding Neverland 86 9.89 15 : 33 5.73 1.48 11 The Passion of the Christ 85 10.13 12 : 30 7.04 1.46 12 Dogville 84 12.72 14 : 21 5.96 1.44 13 Collateral 83 11.63 16 : 39 5.19 1.43 14 Ying xiong (Hero) 80 12.32 17 : 30 4.71 1.38 15 Closer 68 11.00 14 : 28 4.82 1.16 16 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou 56 7.71 9 : 19 6.22 0.97 17 Shi mian mai fu (House of Flying Daggers) 53 8.10 10 : 21 5.30 0.91 18 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 47 10.65 16 : 31 2.91 0.80 19 Hotel Rwanda 40 5.73 7 : 14 5.71 0.69 20 The Machinist 37 4.79 5 : 13 7.40 0.64 21 Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring) 32 4.24 5 : 13 6.40 0.55 22 Touching the Void 31 6.00 7 : 24 4.43 0.53 23 Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement) 28 4.47 6 : 11 4.67 0.48 24 Napoleon Dynamite 25 3.43 5 : 22 5.00 0.43 25 Maria Full of Grace 25 3.11 4 : 17 6.25 0.43 26 Tasogare seibei (The Twilight Samurai) 25 3.05 4 : 8 6.25 0.43 27 Shaun of the Dead 24 5.00 7 : 26 3.43 0.41 28 Friday Night Lights 22 3.36 5 : 22 4.40 0.38 29 Miracle 20 2.05 3 : 20 6.67 0.34 30 Vozvrashcheniye (The Return) 18 3.01 4 : 9 4.50 0.31 Columns:

1. Position Film Title Total Score: A summation of each film's position in each contributor's top 10, with points given as follows: 1st place = 10, 10th place = 1. 10th place ties get .5 points per tie, limit to 2. All ties above 10th place have the points averaged for the positions (i.e., a 2-place tie for first would give 9.5 points for each place: 10+9, divided by 2). Fractional Weighted Total: The total combined fractional weighted scores of each contributor's film. Fractional weighted scores are computed for each contributor by the position of the film against the total number of films seen -- i.e., if a contributor saw 50 films, 1st place is 50/50 (1.00), 10th place is 41/50 (0.82). This gives more weight to lists with higher film totals. Top 10 List Appearances : 2004 Film List Appearances: Ratio of a film's appearance in this thread to how many appearances it makes in contributors' lists in the 2004 Film List thread. This gives better value to the Weighted Average (and Total Score) numbers. Weighted Average: Total Score divided by Top 10 List Appearances. This is considered weighted because it only takes into account those contributors who have the film in the top 10. Unweighted Average: Total Score divided by total number of Top 10 contributors (currently 58).

Contributing members [Number of Films in Top 30 Seen/30 : Total Films Seen]; if your name is not on here, and you are sure your list is complete, email me. Grey numbers beside names denotes 10 or less -- if you have only those listed here in the Top 10 list, then you didn't post a list in the 2004 Film List.

 

[ToddP]

Little bit of movement with my top 10. Finally saw Million Dollar Baby this afternoon before the big night. Great movie. I think Clint will win. Anyway, it goes in at #5. I swapped Sideways and House of Flying Daggars, and stuck M$B in between. Hero gets bumped out.

 

[ChrisBEA]

Here is my revised list, my first list (here) was for 2004 films seen theatrically within the calendar year. This list includes all 2004 releases I've seen theatrically including those seen in 2005. There also may be some shuffling since the original list, but this should be considered my final '04 list. Only lists that changed appear here, so please be sure to visit my more extensive prior list.

Top 10 Films of the Year

10. The Saddest Music in the World. Here is a movie which surprised me. It is one of the most bizarre films I've seen. I'm not sure I could adequately describe this great movie.
9. A Very Long Engagement. Jean-Pierre Jeunet has crafted a wonderful WWI romance and Audrey Tautou gives a powerful heartfelt performance.
8. The Aviator. Scorsese strikes again giving us this look into the bizarre world of Howard Hughes. This is one of the better bio-pics I've yet seen. Leonardo Dicaprio proves that he is a talented actor. Also features fine supporting acts.
7. Sideways. Alexander Payne weaves a tale of real people and real situations. Great performances and dialogue highlight this comic drama.
6. Garden State. Who knew Scrubs' Zach Braff had this in him? He has come out as a new voice for the big screen. I look forward to what he does next. I can't recommend this enough.
5. Hotel Rwanda. Amazing film, Don Cheadle gives one of the best performances of the year. It took me awhile to regain my composure afterwards.
4. House of Flying Daggers. Easily the most gorgeous film I've seen this year. I know this was actually released back in 2002, but it finally made it to the US screens. Jet Li stars in this martial arts epic.
3. Kill Bill Vol. 2. The completion of an epic revenge tale stands alone as it takes The Bride's quest to an end. Tarantino has taken many of his influences and put his own stamp on it.
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This film blew me away. It's visual inventiveness and emotional resonance are second to none. There was no way to predict how this would connect with me. A definite must see for anyone who likes movies, or has known the feeling of lost love.
1. The Passion of the Christ. An absolutely incredible experience. Beautifully shot and acted. Please see it before making up your mind.
NOTES:

I replaced Hero with House of Flying Daggers mainly based on the whole release year thing.
Bad Education and Spider-Man 2 were dropped from the list, both are still very good films, but they didn't make the final cut.
Saddest Music in the World dropped from 7 to 10.
Garden State and Sideways each dropped one spot to 6 and 7.
Hotel Rwanda inserted at number 5.
A Very Long Engagement entered at number 9.
Top 3 Documentaries

3. Control Room. Fascinating look inside Al Jazeera. Granted, it is peddling it's own brand of propaganda, it is eye opening in it's own right.
2. Born into Brothels. An insightful look into the troubled lives of children in the Red Light district of Calcutta.
1. Super Size Me. Morgan Spurlock's fast food binge makes for great entertainment.
NOTES:

Removed The Corporation in favor of the moving Born into Brothels at number 2.

Top 4 Foreign Language Films

4. I'm Not Scared. Here is an impressive film about a young boy who discovers his family is involved in a kidnapping plot.
3. Bad Education. A film you have to work at to decipher, but it's worth it.
2. A Very Long Engagement. A beautiful film with an underlying sweetness.
1. House of Flying Daggers. Simply gorgeous.
NOTES:

Replaced Hero with House of Flying Daggers, same reasoning as in the Top 10 list.
Inserted A Very Long Engagement at number 2.
Dropped Bad Education and I'm Not Scared each one spot.

Top 5 Actors

5. Tom Hanks for The Terminal. Hanks puts on a clinic here, an absolutely mesmerizing performance, that reminds me of Cast Away.
4. Johnny Depp for Finding Neverland. Another wonderful performance filled with a childlike innocence.
3. Paul Giamatti for Sideways. Following up last year's American Splendor comes an even better performance as a wine connoisseur who is also at a crossroads.
2. Jim Carrey for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A great subtle performance in a very moving film.
1. Don Cheadle for Hotel Rwanda. An absolutely breathtaking performance, a lot more layered than I was initially expecting.
NOTES:

Removed Zach Braff.
Dropped Johnny Depp from 2 to 4.
Moved Paul Giamnatti up to 3.
Dropped Jim Carrey from 1 to 2.
Inserted Don Cheadle at number 1.

Top 5 Actresses

5. Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby. I may not be the biggest fan of the film, but her performance is very good.
4. Kate Winslet for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I am not a very big fan of her, but her job her goes far in turning me, it's a good performance.
3. Maia Morgenstern for The Passion of the Christ. A beautiful near silent performance.
2. Uma Thurman for Kill Bill Vol. 2. Physically and mentally exhausting tour de force of revenge.
1. Bryce Dallas Howard for The Village. An incredible performance in a terribly disappointing film.
NOTES:

Removed Natalie Portman.
Moved Kate Winslet up to 4th.
Inserted Hilary Swank at number 5.

Top 5 Supporting Actors

5. Morgan Freeman for Million Dollar Baby. Top performance in a very good film. A role of quiet power.
4. Tony Leung for Hero. I love Leung's performance emotional and powerful at the same time.
3. Thomas Haden Church for Sideways. Just one of a great ensemble performance.
2. Jamie Foxx for Collateral. What a performance! I had no idea this talent that Foxx had, this is a truly eye-opening performance.
1. David Carradine for Kill Bill Vol. 2. Hands down best supporting performance of the year.
NOTES:

Removed Willem Dafoe.
Moved Jamie Foxx from 5 to 2.
Dropped Thomas Haden Church from 2 to 3.
Inserted Morgan Freeman at number 5.
Top 5 Supporting Actresses

5. Isabella Rossellini for The Saddest Music in the World. A fun, legless performance.
4. Cloris Leachman for Spanglish. Ahhh, the advice given from a drunk. Hilarious.
3. Natalie Portman for Garden State. A character you feel for, yet never really know.
2. Virginia Madsen for Sideways. Possibly the best role of her career.
1. Cate Blanchett for The Aviator. The second coming of Katharine Hepburn.
NOTES:

Removed Dakota Fanning.
Dropped Isabella Rossellini from 4 to 5.
Dropped Cloris Leachman from 2 to 4.
Moved Natalie Portman from 4 to 3
Inserted Virginia Madsen at number 2.
Top 5 Directors

5. Jean Pierre Jeunet for A Very Long Engagement. A beautiful romance told amongst great tragedy.
4. Martin Scorsese for The Aviator. Worlds above Gangs of New York. Scorsese's knowledge of film history is put to great use.
3. Alexander Payne for Sideways. Combining laugh out loud comedy and heart wrenching drama is no easy task.
2. Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill Vol. 2. What can I say? His work here is genius. Can't wait for what's next.
1. Michel Gondry for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Comedy, drama, science fiction, all blended into the best film of the year.
NOTES:

Removed Pedro Almodovar.
Inserted Jean Pierre Jeunet.
That brings this edition to an end. This is hopefully my final list for the the 2004 year. It could change again, but for all intents and purposes this is it. What do you think?

 

[ChrisBEA]

Note:
Touching the Void was a 2003 release

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Not if one is using Academy release qualification dates.

~Edwin

 

[Elizabeth S]

I'm sorry for the oversight -- I have added the 2 films (Million Dollar Baby and Oldboy) into my 2004 list. (I forgot to add them since one was not seen theatrically and the other was seen in 2005.)

"Rewind" is a South Korean film from director Kim Hak-soon which does not seem to be listed on imdb.

Film link from Hawaii International Film Festival here:

http://www.hiff.org/filmlisting_tick...&pid=REWI&sid=

Because they list the year as 2003 (presumed Korean release -- can't find U.S. release date), I have deleted it from the 2004 list and added it to the ineligible films seen in 2004.

Also, I have added "Hotel Rwanda" to the 2004 list and inserted it at #5 in my Top 10, thus moving the subsequent movies down one notch.

Thank you for the hard work!

 

[Brian Lawrence]

# 01 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind


# 02 - Maria Full of Grace


# 03 - Facing Windows


# 04 - Baadasssss!


# 05 - The Dreamers


# 06 - Mean Creek


# 07 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban


# 08 - Dogville


# 09 - Metallica: Some Kind of Monster


# 10 - Kill Bill: Volume 2

 

[schmidtt]

Best of 2004

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind



2. The Staircase



3. Sideways



4. Shaun of the Dead



5. Primer



6. Moolaadé




7. Head-On



Honorable Mentions: I Heart Huckabees, The Mother, Closer, The Aviator, Kinsey, Some Kind of Monster, Control Room