Pouring Over 2004 Media

On 08/25/2020 at 06:44 PM by KnightDriver

2004 was more pizza and music, but I do remember going to my dad's summer beach house in North Carolina. We had fun fishing, going to book stores and eating out. The drive from Philly was fun too. 7 1/2 hours with a stop on the Cheasapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel. I also enjoyed the following media.

TV: The Mighty Boosh

Little did I know that my favorite show on planet earth would appear on British TV in 2004, but it did, The Mighty Boosh. This show has all my favorite things: stand up, situation comedy, skits, musical numbers, fantasy segments and a whole lot of stage design and costuming. I love the surreal, silly, absurd, artsy nature of this show.

Film: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

This movie was my entry point into the work of director Wes Anderson. I can't say enough about this movie. It's the careful set design and cinematography, the ensemble cast that works so well together, the sly humor, the angst and frustration regarding relationships, references to things I grew up with in the 70s (he's only a couple years younger than me), and great choice of music. It has it all for me. What really iced this as a all time favorite for me was, at the time, I was into Bowie and especially the song "Queen Bitch". When the film used a lot of bowie music sung in spanish and then capped the final moments with the original, nasty rock version of "Queen Bitch", I was so head over heels. It was like someone was reading my mind.

Game: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

It's hard to describe the feeling of pure joy and wonder I had playing this game. It's astonishingly creative and delightful. I love the battle system where it's turn-based but you have timed button presses to make it feel more actiony. It's the same system used in the Mario & Luigi games. There are many interesting gameplay mechanics involving the things paper can do and a lot of humor in every encounter. It's a very colorful game with nifty puzzles. I'd say Paper Mario and the Mario & Luigi games are my favorite Nintendo franchises even over Mario Bros. and Zelda.

Music: Trekkies 2 Soundtrack

This trailer gives no clue as to the rich wonderful fan music which was showcased in this documentary. I have the soundtrack and it is so dear to me. I listened to it front to back for a whole week when it came out. It feels like a collection of demos made by friends of mine, only, I wish I had more friends like these trekkies. There is a variety of musical styles such as folk by Leslie Fish (called filk - scifi folk music), rock by Warp 11, metal by Klingon themed Stovokor and punk by No Kill I. There are also a lot of funny dialog tracks from the movie. It's all hilarious to me but also heartwarming because I can totally understand this level of fandom. I always wanted to do a themed band or something humerous in music. I love costuming too. Once I painted myself red for a show. Not exatly a costume, but it was something.

Book: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

I remember being decidedly not interested in the movie when it came out in 2012 but one day I decided to read the book and devoured it. It's a tour de force of literary skill. Each time period featured in the book comes with it's own literary style appropriate to the time. I was mightly impressed by that. I found the ultimate message of the book a bit depressing but I still enjoyed the ride. There's a futuristic corpocracy near the end that is scarily not unthinkable at this present time. I often think about it and cringe.

What did you see or do in 2004?

SanAndreas

08/25/2020 at 07:46 PM

2004 was one of the worst years of my life. My Gamecube got me through a lot of hell that year. though things started to look a little better. Didn't watch much in the way of movies, when I went out with friends we went out to clubs. I really started reading the Harry Potter series. My favorite games of the year were Tales of Symphonia, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, and Baten Kaitos.

KnightDriver

08/27/2020 at 06:33 PM

That's too bad. I realy want to play Tales of Symphonia. I have it here somewhere, I think.

Cary Woodham

08/25/2020 at 08:30 PM

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is one of the GameCube's best RPGs, and probably the best Mario RPG in all the series. It's a shame the recent Paper Mario games sucked, but at least Origami King is a LITTLE better.

After 2003, things didn't change much for me, but that was pretty good since 2003 was when things started to improve for me. I went back to E3 in 2004, played games like Katamari Damacy, and joined a new little Web site you might've heard of called 1up.com.

08/27/2020 at 06:36 PM

I played one of the 3DS Paper Marios but didn't get all that far in it.

Good time to join 1UP. I was there so much later in 2010. It was almost over by then. I'd been following them in podcast form before that though.

08/28/2020 at 08:26 AM

The 3DS Paper Mario game was Sticker Star and it's the worst Paper Mario game out there. I'd say it's also one of Nintendo's worst games period, right on up there with Donkey Kong Barrel Blast and Star Fox Zero.

08/29/2020 at 09:00 AM

Yeah, that was the one. I didn't play it very long.

Super Step Contributing Writer

08/26/2020 at 12:14 AM

"What did you see or do in 2004?" Oh ... holy shit, 2004 was possibly the most pivotal year in my life. I won't get into it but I discovered (accepted?) I had different religious and political beliefs than my family, watched the Red Sox win the World Series while Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" was winning the 9 o'clock cock fight on Dallas radio station The Edge (before it was a big hit it was being pitted against other songs on that segment), Dodgeball and Mean Girls were huge movies but so was The Passion of the Christ which I saw because I went to Catholic school, Boston Legal was my favorite TV show at the time, etc.

Anyway, as far as what you've shown here:

That NC summer is what I'm most interested in.

I have heard of The Mighty Boosh so many times, but never really watched it. I should. It sounds good. I honestly never quite knew what it was.

I need to give Steve Zissou another chance. I think I was too young to appreciate it at the time.

I loved Paper Mario on N64 and people seem to hail Thousand Year Door as the height of the series so I'm sure I'd love it. I should get it for Gamecube.

I have a couple Trekkie friends. They're good people. I never really paid attention until the Abrams movies, which I enjoyed, but I see why people prefer the more heady aspects of the TV series. Certainly a favorite among philosophy professors.

Cloud Atlas is one I should give A chance to but I kept hearing "book great, movie hilariously bad." I mean, I do love a hilariously bad movie at times but I guess I can get the book.

08/27/2020 at 06:43 PM

I remember seeing Mean Girls and liking it.

I'm not sure what it is either, still. Mighty Boosh is it's own reality, or psychedelic drug trip.

Everytime I see the Cloud Atlas trailer I dislike it despite the "wow" visuals and the Wachowsky bros. Maybe it's Tom Hanks and the emphasis on a love story, which is hardly a major thing in the book, at least I don't remember any of that being especially important. The book is excellent if bleak in outlook.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

08/26/2020 at 08:34 AM

I want to read Cloud Atlas, but it's a little long, and I've mostly been sticking with short books because of my attention span. But I've been promising myself that 2021 is the year I read long books.

2004 was not a great year for me. I was living in Philly and very lonely.

Thousand Year Door is a GREAT game. The pinnacle of Paper Mario, for me, so far.

I love Life Aquatic. I've watched it a lot. So very well done. I really like Anderson's movies.

08/27/2020 at 06:47 PM

Funny, I don't remember it being long (even though it is). Maybe because I got so into it and read it quickly as a result. I read Three Musketeers in like blinding speed because it hooked me so.

I can't wait to see what Anderson does next. I should look it up, there's probably news on his next project out there.

08/27/2020 at 06:58 PM

Yeah he has a new movie but it got delayed because of the virus. It's about the running of a small magazine in France in the 60s I think.

08/27/2020 at 07:13 PM

Sweeeet. I'll have to see if there's a teaser trailer or something.

08/27/2020 at 09:27 PM

There's definitely a trailer. It looks awesome. Was supposed to come out this summer. I think it's called "The French Dispatch".

08/29/2020 at 08:57 AM

Thank you! I will look it up.

goaztecs

08/27/2020 at 12:04 PM

Road trips like that were the best. I always liked the stops at random gas stations because for a couple of minutes you could get out, look around, and wonder where the other people were going.

2004 was interesting for me, I had a little job out of college, I started getting into sneakers, and I was buying up old video games.

08/27/2020 at 06:50 PM

When I went down with my dad it was a little bit subdued. Plus he liked to drive the whole way with only one stop. Subsequently I've gone down on my own, with a friend, and my girlfriend on different occassions. Those were a little more free and easy, and I stopped a lot along the way to check things out. My mom sold the house sometime in 2014 or so. I haven't been anywhere since then. Hard to find free holiday stays.

PixlBit

Pouring Over 2004 Media

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