Walt Disney, part LXII: Out in the land where the weak are target practice

HOME ON THE RANGE

2004

Directed by Will Finn and John Sanford

Written by Michael LaBash, Sam Levine, Mark Kennedy, Robert Lence, Will Finn, and John Sanford

Spoilers: moderate

Ocean's Week: It's not in my nature to be mysterious, but I can't talk about it, and I can't talk about why

OCEAN'S TWELVE

2004

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Written by George Nolfi

Spoilers: high

Towering with you

THE PLACE PROMISED IN OUR EARLY DAYS

2004

Written and directed by Makoto Shinkai

Spoilers: moderate (also discussed, Shinkai's early short films, 1999's "She and Her Cat" and 2002's "Voices of a Distant Star")

All under heaven

HERO

2002 PRC/2004 USA

Directed by Zhang Yimou

Written by Feng Li, Bin Wang, and Zhang Yimou

Spoiler alert: the plot's about an attempted assassination of Qin Shi Huang, so maybe it's not the biggest spoiler to say that no, it doesn't come off; otherwise, moderate

I can imagine no way in which this thing could be considered anywhere close to safe

PRIMER

2004

Written and directed by Shane Carruth

Spoiler alert: moderate

This story has never ended

MIND GAME

Still Yuasa's masterpiece, after all these years.

2004 (Japan)/2018 (seriously?) (USA)

Written and directed by Masaaki Yuasa (based on the comic by Robin Nishi)

Spoiler alert: kind of N/A, really, but I guess let's say moderately highish

Alien Week, part V: The chariots of the gods

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR

AVP isn't exactly great, but is absolutely some brand of "good enough," and it's entirely impossible for me to understand how this is the one that wound up pissing everybody off.

2004

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Written by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett, and Paul W.S. Anderson

With Sanaa Lathan (Alexa Woods), Lance Henriksen (Charles Bishop Weyland), Ian Whyte ("Scar"), and Tom Woodruff, Jr. ("Grid")

Spoiler alert: moderate

Robert Zemeckis, part XIV: Snowpiercer

THE POLAR EXPRESS

Zemeckis' first mo-cap cartoon is blessed with not just a great deal of appealingly colorful design, but a whole new second volume in Tom Hanks' Encylcopedia of Amusingly Stupid Voices, too.  But reach beyond these attractive (albeit sometimes clunkily-animated) surfaces, and all you have left is the hollowness that lay at the heart of The Polar Express, a genial-as-shit nothing of a movie that I can't quite bring myself to even really dislike, yet shall never, ever truly enjoy.

2004

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Written by William Broyles, Jr. and Robert Zemeckis (based on the book by Chris Van Allsberg)

With Daryl Sabara/Josh Hutcherson/Tom Hanks (The Boy), Nona Gaye/Chantel Valdivieso/Meagan Moore/Tinashe Kachingwe (The Girl), Eddie Deezen/Jimmy Pinchak (Know-It-All), Jimmy Bennett/Peter Scolari/Hayden McFarland (Billy), and Tom Hanks (The Father, The Conductor, The Hobo, The Puppet Scrooge, Santa Claus, and The Narrator, the Boy as a Man)

Spoiler alert: insofar as this movie has a plot in the first place, moderate

Steven Spielberg, part XXVIII: Yes, "geniality" is one of my metrics for these things

THE TERMINAL

A movie I'm apparently not supposed to love at all, but it turns out I do anyway.

2004

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Sacha Gervasi, Jeff Nathanson, and Andrew Niccol

With Tom Hanks (Victor Navorski), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Amelia Warren), Kumar Pallana (Gupta), Chi McBride (Mulroy), Diego Luna (Enrique Cruz), Zoe Saldana (Dolores Torres), Barry Shabaka Henley (Thurman), and Stanley Tucci (Frank Dixon)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Ron's heartworm medication, part I

HARRY POTTER AND THE ____________
Directed by Chris Columbus (1-2), Alfonso Cuaron (3), Mark Newell (4), and David Yates (5-8)
Written by Steve Klove (1-4, 6-8) and Michael Goldenburg (5) (based on the novels by J.K. Rowling)
With the population of Britain—Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasly), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Richard Harris (Prof. Albus Dumbledore, vol. 1), Michael Gambon (Prof. Albus Dumbledore, vol. 2), Robbie Coltrane (Rubeus Hagrid), Alan Rickman (Prof. Severus Snape), Kenneth Branagh (Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), David Thewlis (Prof. Remus Lupin), Brendon Gleeson (Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody), Jim Broadbent (Prof. Horace Slughorn), Timothy Spall (Wormtail), Maggie Smith (Prof. Minerva MacGonacle), Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge), Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange), Warwick Davis (various), and Ralph Fiennes (Voldemort)

Spoiler alert: I'm trying to keep it at moderate—God alone knows whom for—but it will unavoidably slip into high in regards the later films

The amazing web of the spectacular Spider-Man unlimited, part II: Not the superior Spider-Man

In celebration of his fifth cinematic iteration, this series of reviews is devoted to the only arachnid I wouldn't scream at and kill with poison.  Here comes the Spider-Man! 

SPIDER-MAN 2

The bold new chapter in the Spider-Man saga does almost exactly what the first chapter did, except it does it much worse while looking much better.

2004
Directed by Sam Raimi
Written by Alfred Gough, Miles Miller, Michael Chabon, and Alvin Sargent
With Tobey Maguire (Peter Parker), Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane Watson), James Franco (Harry Osborn), Rosemary Harris (May Parker), Cliff Robertson (Ben Parker), J.K Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson), and Alfred Molina (Otto Octavius)

Spoiler alert: moderate

The reason for the season

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

Did the militant atheist enjoy spending the afternoon of his last day off watching a right-wing Christian fundamentalist film about humanity's inherent worthlessness in the absence of God?  The answer may surprise you!  Especially if you don't look at the tags!

2004
Directed by Mel Gibson
Written by Benedict Fitzgerald and Mel Gibson (based on the books by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)
With Jim Caviezel (Yeshua), Maya Morgenstern (Maryam), Luca Lionello (Yehudah), Hristo Shopov (Pontius Pilate), Francesco De Vito (Shimon), Christo Jivkov (Yochanan), and Monica Belluci (Magdalen)

Spoiler alert: N/A