Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004)

7/10
It was pretty funny, most of which I chalk up to Tina Fey (the writer and the actor). On one hand it's sad to see how far Lindsay Lohan has fallen, but it's not like she was a particularly good actor either.

Wicker Park (Paul McGuigan, 2004)

4/10
Weird romance/thriller that I watched with a friend on Netflix...it jumps through a lot of hoops in trying to keep our starcrossed lovers seperate (mistaken identities, stalking, and a lot of information being withheld from the viewer until just the right moment), only to unite them inevitably in a standard Hollywood "crying together at the airport" finale. Apparently it's a remake of a French film called L'appartement which, by all accounts, did it a lot better and more coherently.

The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004)

7/10
Everyone talked about how great this was and I didn't really see it, to be honest. It was fun, but the script was nowhere near as sharp or as witty as Pixar's best. It was more just a marvel of animation more than anything. And was I the only one who thought Jason Lee was totally ill-fitting as the villain's voice actor?

Century 21 (Jeremy Blake, 2004)

7/10
A rating for an experimental video art installation is pretty arbitrary I suppose but anyway...Jeremy Blake's Century 21 is part of a trilogy including two other similarly themed works, Winchester and 1906. All three center on the Winchester Mystery House and the imagined mental state of Sarah Winchester herself. Hypercolor images of the House blend with Blake's paintings and drawings and backed with a full radio dial's worth of soundtrack, with 50's Western themes playing a major role. Some stills here, here and here to give a better idea.
More interesting than the film is the story of Blake and his partner, artist Theresa Duncan. After moving to New York and achieving success within the industry (you may know Blake's work from an animation he did for Punch-Drunk Love, or Beck album covers and music videos) the couple became increasingly paranoid and convinced they were being harassed and surveilled by the Church of Scientology. After alienating virtually everyone close to them via increasingly erratic behavior, Duncan committed suicide by overdosing on pills and Blake followed a week after, walking naked into the ocean and drowning. Gus Van Sant is apparently involved in a movie about the two based on an extremely interesting Vanity Fair article.

Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004)

6.5/10
To be honest, with all the critical acclaim this movie got, I was a little letdown. At times it's pretty tepid and safe, although there are definitely a few laugh-out-loud moments. It's a testament to both the script and the acting that the two main characters Miles and Jack are, when you get down to it, wholly unlikeable people, but not a chore to watch for 2 hours (although Giamatti's Miles grates at times). But like I said, I was left expecting something...bigger.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2004)

8/10
Most of the excitement and eye-popping visuals take place in the first one rather than spread out evenly between the two volumes so Vol. 2 moves a bit slower (despite being longer) than its predecessor. Nevertheless the movie is still very enjoyable, and David Carradine steals every scene he's in (Michael Madsen is also excellent). The ending is surprisingly touching although like in the first one, the movie's final showdown is an abrupt one. I also thought some of the stuff at the end was kind of cheesy but I'd spoil the ending if I went into greater detail so I'll leave it at that. Very satisfying end to a story that's far more inventive than it first appears.

The Machinist (Brad Anderson, 2004)

8.5/10
I thought it was really good...great story about guilt and shame and the defenses we build for ourselves, taken to the extreme here. A lot of the things in the movie were telegraphed and easy to figure out but then there's the other little "twist" at the end that I don't know if anybody would have seen coming...anyway surprises or not it's still a really good, cleverly told story. And of course seeing Bale's physique in that movie compared to the Batman movies is a pretty amazing transformation.

Incident at Loch Ness (Zak Penn, 2004)

8.5/10
Werner Herzog again manipulating the documentary genre...the story is that a cameraman is making a documentary on Werner Herzog called "Herzog in Wonderland" and it follows him as he prepares to direct a documentary on the Loch Ness Monster called "The Enigma of Loch Ness". The production quickly turns into a comedy of errors centering around the bumbling producer Zak Penn who appears to only want to have a role in the project because his name alongside Herzog's will give him some real credibility. As he, Herzog and the rest of the small film crew take to the high seas to shoot the documentary, all kinds of revelations are made along the way, tempers flare, people drown, guns are pulled, and the boat is attacked by the actual Loch Ness monster itself...

It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly (and I even knew it beforehand) that the entire thing is a sham - there is no "Herzog in Wonderland" doc and there is no "Enigma of Loch Ness" and everything you see happening is carefully scripted by Herzog and acted out by real-life people (e.g. Zak Penn really is a Hollywood producer), but it blurs the lines between fiction and reality so well, and it's hilarious to watch everything unfold. I have no idea why this movie got some poor reviews and a score as low as 6.6 on IMDB - maybe people were expecting a real documentary by Herzog on the Loch Ness Monster? Nevertheless it's a really well done look at the genre and an interesting watch to boot.