The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 2004

Ten years ago, damn, we had a really good year.  My list of films to edit down for 2004 was quite sizeable and very difficult.  But, I pulled through.  Once again it came down to factors of owning the movie, how much I've watched and what's actually been revisited over what may or may not have been better.  I'm interested to see some of your picks as I think they could differ greatly from mine.  The Oscar race for this particular year looks kind of weak in comparison to how good this year turned out.  Solid movies were released from start to finish this year.  The past few years had taken until summer for something truly notable to show up.

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 2002

It might just be me, but I feel like I'm finding a pattern here in this study.  Every decade seems to end on an incredibly good run only to have the next start off a little "rougher" or be less difficult to choose from.  This is the year Chicago won the Oscar for Best Picture over of course a LOTR movie we still talk about.  I don't know what it was with Chicago that 2 years ago the Oscars decided to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of it winning Best Picture, but...eh, okay.  My picks are all but one a franchise film for this particular year, but I enjoy all of them. 

The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 1997

Wow, another year that ends in 7 and another really difficult one to make cuts.  Big list that was hard to get down to 6.  The cuts like Fifth Element and the extremely underrated The Lost World sucked to do.  And I cut Gattaca because while I really loved that movie when I first saw it, I've owned it or never gone back to it because I'm afraid it might not hold up.  Yeah, I'm weird, but I really want to keep  my high from seeing it together.  This year I remember most because the Oscar race for Best Picture might have been the best and strongest I had ever seen.  Had Titanic not come this year, 3 of the other 4 nominees probably would have won Best Picture in any other year.  While I did see Titanic twice and it was deserving, I can't help that I liked 2 other films better, but that's me. 1997 is also notable as it was the year I was first able to see the Star Wars movies on the big screen and it was a fun and incredible 3 months when those 'Special Editions' were released.

ELYSIUM Gets A Wonderful Trailer

Judging from this trailer, Neill Blomkanp's follow-up to District 9, Elysium is selling us a quite epic science fiction movie.  Matt Damon doesn't dabble much in the sci-fi ream (Adjustment Bureau and voicework in Titan AE seem to be it), so it'll be nice to see him bringing his always A-Game to the table.  Jodi Foster hasn't been in a big movie in a while and is quite a welcome site as what appears to be the villain.  And with a nice touch, William Fichtner brings great character work to any film.  For the Bond fans, hey look, Talisa Soto (License to Kill) is in this thing.  Budgeted at a reasonable $100 mil, this thing definitely shows it money.

This one was definitely on the watch list, but after this, I'm not missing it opening weekend.  How about you?

Elysium opens August 9th