2004 in movies: grumpy trolls and grumpy old men rule

 

As a self-described savvy market overseer might say, Shrek sure was edgy, current, and hip. That Starbucks joke was funny then, back when I didn't drink coffee, and it's still a good one now ... and I still don't drink coffee.

Shrek 2 was a nice revisit to the follow-up punch (and, ultimately, last gasp) of a true phenomenon. Shrek, the franchise, was a shooting star that didn't really have lasting power, although I've heard tell good things of the Puss in Boots Last Wish movie so I should check that out. Shrek 2 was still in top-form and a good example of a sequel that simply offered more of the same without being regurgitative. And that was cool, because I think we just wanted a little more Shrek without worrying about expanding its universe or anything monumental like that.

Hand-down winning bit for me, though, is the scene-stealing Antonio Banderas doing his hairball performance. I hope this was really him doing it and not a stunt-cougher. https://youtu.be/F5wWlMNBrvY

As with all movies, games, books, and life in general, I'm always reticent in regards to discussing spoilers. But how to even approach discussing the Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby without getting into its big twist? I guess by not talking about the big twist.

Well, first let's get the Marvel movie connections out of the way, because we're getting to the era in movie history when it's easy to spot two, three, or seven actors in a film that will eventually pop up in a super-hero flick. Here it's Peña and Mackie, but I was most pleased to see Mike Colter who is still a few years away from making me a Luke Cage fan. 

This really is two movies in one, of course, and while the boxing movie is fine, it's the final act that presumably put this one over the top and gave it the Oscar. There was always something I found a little clunky and emotionally distant about the whole film, even with that gut-punch ending. This time around time I still find it to be a fine, paint-by-numbers flick, whose transparent manipulative techniques keep me distracted and stop me from really investing myself in it. 

On that note, up next in Oscar history is Crash as Paul Haggis briefly ruled Hollywood with his on-the-nose touch. Can't wait. 

2004 in TV: CSI maintains its grip on number-one

 

Once again I faced a decision of how to pick an episode out of a season's worth of shows to celebrate CSI's third year on top of the ratings. So, why this one?

Well, the episode features Pruitt Taylor Vince in a guest spot, and I've kept tabs on him ever since I saw him in the movie The Legend of 1900. That's not, however, what first drew me to it. 

The reason was that the title "Swap Meet" reminded me of the track "Swap Meet Louis" by Sir-Mix-A-Lot, and I thought surely this would be an episode worthy of Sir Mix's pedigree.

Well, I suppose it was. Mix would surely approve of this tawdry episode featuring a group of swingin' marriage-partner-swappers suddenly faced with a murder within the group. 

That's not what Vince was involved with, though. I'm now well aware that the template of this show is to offer up a pair of unrelated stories and therefore keep the in-depth storytelling (and long-term attention demands on the audience) to a minimum. Vince was really just around to shine a light on the disgruntled/industrious employees of crime scene clean-up crews.

As I finish my run of CSI, I can't help but think that having three years on top of the ratings is probably something Law & Order deserved a little more, in terms of quality of storytelling, but I can see how CSI's playbook of sex, drugs, and rock and roll rocketed it to the top.

2003 in video games: another weird arcade game, more Pokémon and SimCity, and Mario Kart has its day

 

If you've been following along with my arcade posts, then you know the story from these early 2000s: Street Fighter, and other games like it, aren't top dog anymore because you could play it on your console at home. So, the arcades were trying to bring you into the mall by mixing up games with playing cards and other tangible elements to go along with the experience. 

In 2003, the extra touch was a card featuring your very own fighting beetle that you'd send into battle in this unusual looking game called Mushiking. Check out some footage here and please tell me if you see this anywhere out in the wild.

And it's cool to see Sega still owning all these top games in the arcade while their home console empire was nearly finished its steady collapse. 

In the handheld gaming market, Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire maintains its hold on the top-selling spot, and Nintendo also gets a rare win for these times in the home console wars with Mario Kart: Double Dash stepping up as best-seller for home console games, specifically for the Gamecube.

I've played this plenty of times, so I found an emulator and just gave it a quick spin. I'm not about to claim that getting first place in the Mushroom Cup at 50cc is worth crowing about, but that's where I left things.

Finally, SimCity returns with big sales for the PC market in its fourth version. I found this one much more intuitive than the original and, as I was building a seemingly effective (though admittedly ugly) city, I tried to take a screenshot for this post but it seems there's something in Steam that blocks taking them? Makes sense, I guess. Anyway, trust me: it was ugly. But Bob and Sophia were happy to move in, so who else do I really need to please?

Well, my fire chief, who - get this - wanted a road connecting the station to the neighbourhood! Patience, chief, I was working on it.

And one of my advisors wanted me to cut spending on hospitals, which was frankly way too real-life for me to deal with so I ignored her.

I'll get back to being mayor of the aptly named "New City" later because I was enjoying this one very much.

2003 in music: Evanescence lands at the perfect time and Sam Roberts wows me

 

Take care of your library materials, folks - the CD cover/booklet is lost to time.

While every album naturally sounds like it belongs to a certain era, even if it's not the era in which it was actually released, I can't think of any other album that sounds so specifically tied to a single year as much as Evanescence's Fallen, top selling album of the year. It sounds so much like 2003 that I don't think it could have been released in any other year. That kinda weak, tinny-sounding guitar and the combination of nu-metal rap and singing belongs right where it is.

For the record, I much prefer the non-metal infused tracks like Hello, which was new to me, and My Immortal, which I've loved since the video was on rotation. 

Now, onto the Juno-winning Album of the Year by Sam Roberts, We Were Born In a Flame. I expected to get what I've received from a number of unfamiliar records over this project, which would be to hear the hit songs that I knew and then to amble my way through a bunch of filler rock tracks. I don't even mind filler rock tracks, but I was pleasantly surprised to receive an album of much more than that.

The hits are great: Brother Down, Don't Walk Away Eileen, and Where Have All the Good People Gone don't disappoint. What makes the disc great is that there really isn't any filler and a lot of care went into the whole album. A couple of songs near the middle are my initial favourites - those would be Dead End and Every Part of Me - but I'm eager to get back to this album and find some more.

2003 in movies: A double bill of Best Picture winners

 

I could be proven wrong, of course, but I don't think this is going to happen again in my project. The top-grossing movie of the year, Finding Nemo, also received the Oscar for Best Animated Picture, while Return of the King took home the classic Best Picture, I guess you'd call it? So, I get an Oscar two-fer.

Finding Nemo felt like the culmination of that incredible first run of Pixar movies, and while Monsters Inc. is my personal favourite, I recognize Finding Nemo as Pixar at its peak. It's beautiful, funny, and a heart-killer like only Pixar stuff can be.

It was also the last Pixar movie my wife and I watched before our son arrived in late summer, so we considered it our final primer for parenting. 

Now, to continue the story, the final installment of The Lord of the Rings arrived in theatres after our son was born, and we weren't quite up for a three and a half hour-ish trip out of the house yet, so my mom helped us out by babysitting for us twice. We watched the movie until a point near halfway, went home, and came back late for another showing to pick up where we'd left off. It turns out that the scene with Grond, that's the giant, flaming battering ram up above, was our marker.

Anyway, what to say? It's a tremendous final chapter to the trilogy, but then, it's not really a sequel, just like the books aren't either; they're just sectioned parts of one long book. The point is that it was going to take a monumental screw-up to not finish the run of movies on the same level of quality as the rest. 

I haven't actually watched the theatrical version in a while, and as much as I love the extra bloating in each of the extended editions, I'd forgotten (or shrugged off) how lean and effective the actual Oscar winning is.

And I'd better share my favourite LOTR meme here:

CSI holds onto top spot in 2003's TV ratings

 

I'm into week two of CSI and waiting to see if I will like this show any better the second time around. 

Well, no. I still find its tone oddly juvenile, with the lead-in to many commercial breaks featuring a lame and/or awkwardly inappropriate pun. I still find the murders and investigations to have the feel of being clever, without the cleverness to back it up. 

And, to really seal the deal for me to not take this show seriously, tell me this scene doesn't feel like it's right out of Police Squad!

As my daughter suggested, if they'd just had the heart jumping up and down, they'd have nailed it. 

2003: The Da Vinci Code cashes in on conspiracy and controversy

The first and only other time I've read this book, best seller in 2003, was only a couple of years after it came out. It was recommended by my mother as a light, fun read, but being the younger, slightly more impressionable reader that I was, I couldn't believe what I had in my hands. How is this not setting the world on fire? Dan Brown has unlocked a two-millennium old secret!

Well, I'm older and wiser now, of course, and so I recognize that it's easy to posit sensational theories about unverifiable historical events.  Let's just put all of that aside.

What hasn't changed is that Brown is great at writing that makes you keep reading. Every chapter ends with a hook, and sometimes those chapters are a page and half long so you don't have much time to think before you launch forwards. 

It's a much better book than a movie, to be sure.

Oh, and be careful about including any in-the-moment astounding statistics, such as the incredible 500MB/sec download speed that Brown wows us with. It's guaranteed to not age well.