Picks of 2004

Greece winning the UEFA European Championship wasn't the only shocker of 2004. A number of films released that year genuinely surprised me. As a staunch opponent of films dear to me getting the remake treatment, who would have thought Zac Snyder's Dawn of the Dead would have been great. Don't get it twisted, anyone who prefers the remake over the original still deserves to be put in stocks and shamed.

Way too many blindspots in 2004 for your host, along with films which were enjoyable at the time, but scarcely remembered, hence left off.

The Aviator (Martin Scorsese)

Calvaire (Fabrice Du Welz)

Creep (Christopher Smith)

Dawn of the Dead (Zac Snyder)

Dead Man's Shoes (Shane Meadows)

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (Rawson Marshall Thruber)

The Incredibles (Brad Bird)

Kill Bill: Volume 2 (Quentin Tarantino)

Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow)

Man on Fire (Tony Scott)

Mean Girls (Mark Waters)

Pusher II (Nicolas Winding Refn)

Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright)

Spartan (David Mamet)

Team America: World Police (Trey Parker)

Dumplings (Fruit Chan)

The Village (M. Night Shamalamadingdong)

Unpopular Opinions: 

Never fell under the spell of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Not sure how anyone could fall in love with Kate Winslet in the first place let alone be so heartbroken after breaking up with her you'd want your memories of the relationship erased from your mind.

Regarding the second chapter in Tarantino's Kill Bill saga, there's a lot that I like and a lot that I don't. It is a good film, but it's the turning point for me where his indulgences would really become irksome from this point onward.

Simon Pegg owes his entire success to Edgar Wright. Much prefer Hot Fuzz (2007) in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, but won't front on Shaun of the Dead being a good film. Pegg is less of a whiny and annoying manchild in the second one.

Romancing the Stone

"It's a relationship... of sorts. But we manage. We've even got a bit of a love life."

Love is in the air, so I'm compelled to share one of Russell T. Davis's most bizarre episodes from his original stint as writer and showrunner on Doctor Who (1963 - 2024).

Largely considered as one of the weaker episodes from the noughties relaunch, Love & Monsters focuses on a small collective of people obsessed with the titular Time Lord, while presented like a mockumentary. The concept is sound; the execution, not so much. What was originally intended as a lighthearted filler episode, especially after the Prince of Darkness (1987) and Event Horizon (1997) callbacks from The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit two parter, became nightmare fuel, thanks to its villain and disturbing epilogue.

With its human disguise, an alien villain known as the Abzorbaloff (Peter Kay), quickly takes leadership of the group and gradually consumes them for sustinance. The victims end up like the trapped souls within Freddy Krueger's body. The Doctor eventually saves the day (or does he?) and manages to give Ursula (Shirley Henderson), the last of the Abzorbaloff's victims, a fate worse than death by placing her within a slab of concrete. Adding to the disturbing mix is Elton (Marc Warren) and Ursula's relationship blossoms romantically and sexually.

The Abzorbaloff was a winning design by a nine year old on the long running children's BBC show Blue Peter. Therefore, it's a safe bet that Doctor Who was really cashing in on its family show rep at the time. Now, imagine the shock horror of the parents watching that particular episode knowing that it signs off with the hint that a man is having sex with a paving slab.

"Garlic bread?"

Relive Kill Repeat

Triangle (Christopher Smith, 2009)

Decided to check out Christopher Smith's nun themed chiller, Consecration (2023) recently. Turned out to be a failure, just like Jenna Malone's British accent in it. I also noticed Smith recycled certain elements from his far superior film, Triangle (2009). Hence, the time was right to give this mindbending film a revisit.

Although it essentially spells things out for attentive viewers by the end credits, Smith's Triangle is a rewarding viewing experience for anyone who might consider themself an aficionado of head scratcher movies. Much like Aolus, the greek god of the four winds, the film runs at a breezy pace thanks to its perpetual time loop concept and all its glitches keep the film feeling fresh throughout.

Deja vu themed films will obviously incur comparisons to Groundhog Day (1993), but Triangle is a very different breed of film; its effects overlap with a past, present and future protagonist co-existing in the loop. There's also the overall tone of the film being much darker completely fixated on the psychological horror of its twisted concept. Smith's film also draws from greek mythology (the legend of Sisyphus) rather than a sci-fi concept that might have been alluded to by its title. Triangle's protagonist, Jess, a struggling mother to a young boy with autism, behaves very strangely from the onset, and things get even weirder for her and her sailing party after a freak storm leaves them adrift on their capsized yacht. A mysterious ocean liner becomes the main location for the oncoming surreal events to follow. Are Jess and her party caught in the legendary Bermuda Triangle? Who is the sackclothed psycho with a shotgun resembling The Phantom Killer? How did Liam Hemsworth land the role of Victor over his brother Chris? Most of these questions will be answered by the finale.

This nautical, noughties enigma is spearheaded by a killer performance from Aussie actress Melissa George as Jess. This was her decade since she progressed from bit part film roles after her stint in the Australian soap opera Home & Away as Angel Parrish, to becoming a bonafide scream queen with a spate of horror films in the 2000s: The Amityville Horror (2005), Turistas (2006) and 30 Days of Night (2007). To break it down by today's hack media, if they're female and in a horror film, they're automatically granted the moniker of scream queen by default. Them's the rules, apparently. Nevertheless, Melissa George's performance in Triangle is the major reason why she is honoured with Dada Debaser's coveted Best Scream Queen of the 2000s title. Her ability to act automatically makes her one of the better ones, which works to the film's advantage since she realling gets to flex some serious emotional range in the film while still looking great in her daisy dukes. She's phenomenally good in portraying Jess as a fractured and morally grey individual.

Never really noticed the plot holes that some critics have pointed out. My only real gripe; which is minor, are the references to The Shining (1980). The inclusion of the number 237 for both Jess's house and the cabin room felt completely unnecessary. Like some other films from this period, I was also worried the film's visuals might have dated it. Surpringly, the harsh lighting, which was so synoymous with that particular era, served the film incredibly well. Huge fan of the scenes shot on deck which highlight this since they're a prime example of daylight horror done right, in my opinion.

All in all, Triangle was already a great film to begin with, and seeing this again reinforces it as a perfect candidate to my belief that 2009 was an incredible year for cinema. Triangle ought to be considered as the climax to both Australian and British genre during the noughties renaissance. Despite enjoying some of his other movies, Christopher Smith never reached this level of quality again, therefore I consider it his magnum opus. Highly recommended.

Picks of 2003

It may have been the year of Captain Jack Sparrow, that song off Daredevil, and a blasphemous remake of The Italian Job with Marky Mark, but my personal film highlights from 2003 ranged in featuring obvious throwbacks to old school genre cinema, unapologetic cartoon violence and humour, and scream queens in white tank tops and low-rise jeans.

Bad Boys II (Michael Bay)

Bad Santa (Terry Zwigoff)

Beyond Reanimator (Brian Yuzna)

Elf (Jon Favreau)

Final Destination 2 (David R. Ellis)

Freddy vs. Jason (Ronny Yu)

Haute Tension (Alexandre Aja)

The Hunted (William Friedkin)

Johnny English (Peter Howitt)

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (Quentin Tarantino)

Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-Ho)

Oldboy (Park Chan-Wook)

Ong-Bak (Prachya Pinkaew)

A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Jee-Woon)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Marcus Nispel)

Wrong Turn (Rob Schmidt)

Zatoichi (Takeshi Kitano)

Films which I didn't include as I'd only watched once ages ago, but remember liking at the time include: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Open Range, Old School, Biker Boyz and Big Fish.

Say whatever you want about the match-up of the century that was Freddy vs. Jason, but it had what was undoubtedly the best ever promotional event for a film, in my humble opinion.

Freddy vs. Jason (Promo Event)

Las Vegas, 2003 

Picks of 2002

Fave films released from the same year Jade Goody and Alison Hammond were unleashed unto a post-9/11 world. When it rains; it pours.

28 Days Later (Danny Boyle)

Blade II (Guillermo del Toro)

Cabin Fever (Eli Roth)

Catch Me if You Can (Steven Spielberg)

City of God (Kátia Lund & Fernando Meirelles)

Dog Soldiers (Neil Marshall)

Ju-On: The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu)

May (Lucky McKee)

Paid in Full (Charles Stone III)

Reign of Fire (Rob Bowman)

Secretary (Steven Shainberg)

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook)

Slim pickings in retrospect.

Considered adding Gaspar Noé's Irreversible onto the list; which is admittedly a powerful film. However, the first ten or so minutes are beyond nauseating, to the point of vomit inducing. Add that infamous underpass scene and I have no real desire to ever watch it again; nor any of his other films for that matter (except maybe Climax).

Dada Debaser Bonus:

Picks of 2012