I hate to say it, but I didn’t really accomplish much in 2004. The best description for my career these days is “sporadic,” I didn’t begin the novel I’ve been planning (and procrastinating) forever, and I didn’t do any travelling. I did collaborate with a friend on a screenplay, so that’s something, and another friend who lives in Los Angeles paid me a rare visit, but overall it’s not been a memorable year for me. Still, there are a few statistics I can discuss, superficial though they may be.
I saw 31 new feature films in a theater and 25 that were new to me (if not actually new) on home video. I’ve been keeping a list of the movies I see for several years now, and those numbers are about average for me. My reading numbers, however, were significantly lower than in previous years. I got bogged down in a couple of dense volumes that I stubbornly refused to set aside, and it took me months to get through them. As a result, I managed to complete only 13 books instead of the 25 or 30 I usually finish.
Maintaining lists of what I see and read during the year is kind of obsessive, I know, but I find it interesting to look back, and it also gives me something to write about here on Simple Tricks. So, without further ado, here are this year’s lists, with appropriate commentary. Items that have been previously discussed on this blog are hyperlinked.
Movies Seen in 2004
- Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
- Something’s Gotta Give
- The Last Samurai
- Big Fish
- Bubba-Ho-Tep
- Mystic River
- The Cooler
- Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
- Secret Window
- Hellboy
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- 13 Going On 30
- Troy
- The Terminal
- Shrek 2
- The Stepford Wives
- Spider-Man 2
- De-Lovely
- The Bourne Supremacy
- Alien Vs. Predator
- Collateral
- Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
- Fahrenheit 9/11
- Shaun of the Dead
- Napoleon Dynamite
- Ray
- The Incredibles
- The Final Cut
- Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
- National Treasure
- Ocean’s Twelve
Looking back over this list, I see that I had a surprisingly good time at the cinema in ’04. Unlike previous lists that have contained only a handful of stand-outs, I think this one boasts a lot of good films. (My favorites for the year include Master and Commander, The Last Samurai, The Cooler, The Terminal, Spider-Man 2, Collateral, Sky Captain, Shaun of the Dead, and Ray.) There’s also an unusual dearth of stinkers here; the only ’04 films in which I found no value at all were Napoleon Dynamite, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, The Stepford Wives, and the Bridget Jones sequel. That leaves a whole lot of reasonably entertaining flicks that I found worthy of at least one look, even if they weren’t eligible to join the Bennion DVD Library. A couple more years like this could force a re-evaluation of that tired old grumble that Hollywood only generates crap.
Videos Seen in 2004
- Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
- Tadpole
- SWAT
- The Truth About Charlie
- Charade
- Sullivan’s Travels
- Them
- The Thing From Another World
- Double Indemnity
- Conquest of Space
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1955 version)
- Road to Singapore
- School of Rock
- Matchstick Men
- The Big Lebowski
- Yojimbo
- 50 First Dates
- Timeline
- Identity
- A Streetcar Named Desire
- Benny & Joon
- Miracle
- Lost in Translation
- Before Sunset
- Elf
The home theater also ran a lot of good stuff this year, for the most part. Timeline and The Truth About Charlie were crap, and T3 was one of those sequels that wasn’t bad, exactly, but definitely made me wonder “Why?” But the way I look at it, you can’t go wrong with classic noir, big-bug movies, Brando, or Jack Black. For those who blinked and missed them, I highly recommend Identity, Lost in Translation, and Before Sunset.
Books Completed in 2004 (Fiction)
- Blood and Gold–Anne Rice
- Blackwood Farm–Anne Rice
- Blood Canticle–Anne Rice
- Hospital Station–James White
- Ambulance Ship–James White
- Final Diagnosis–James White
Not a lot to say here — the Anne Rice books comprise the final three entries in her long-running Vampire Chronicles and, although they were entertaining, I didn’t find them especially memorable, certainly not on the level of The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned. The White novels are entries in a science-fiction series about a sprawling hospital-in-space capable of treating any species from across the galaxy; think E.R. crossed with Star Trek, or perhaps more accurately, Babylon 5. Again, a pleasant pasttime, but if you’ve read one, you’ve read ’em all.
Books Completed in 2004 (Non-Fiction)
- The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)Leads America–Eric Alterman and Mark Green
- Icebound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole–Dr. Jerri Nielsen with Maryanne Vollers
- Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster–Jon Krakauer
- Had Enough? A Handbook for Fighting Back–James Carville
- The Lost Tomb–Kent R. Weeks
- Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond–Andrew Lycett
- Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America–Robert B. Reich
Ah, non-fiction, where more and more of my reading energies have gone over the past few years. Hard to believe that my fifth-grade teacher Mr. Gilham once had to coerce me into reading what he called “true books.” I’m not going to say anything about the political titles — they’ve lost a lot of their relevance in the wake of the November election, and talking about them would only provoke a fight anyway — but I highly recommend Icebound, a fascinating character study and rousing adventure story sprinkled with lots of fascinating data about medical practices and Antarctica. Into Thin Air is good, too, if harrowing — for the life of me, I do not understand the “mountain climber mentality.” However, avoid the Fleming bio at all costs; it’s a very dry examination of an elitist snob who managed to get lucky by creating a character that is today better known from the movies than the original novels.
And that’s it, my 2004 in a nutshell. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it? I don’t have many plans for ’05 yet — there are a couple of Vegas weekends in the offing, and I’d like to try and tackle Stephen King’s recently completed Dark Tower saga. We’ll see what develops, though.
