The Best of 2004
What film tops Glenn Kenny's list?
By Glenn Kenny
Conventional wisdom holds that 2004 was a “bad” year for movies, but as someone who’s more focused on finding individual works of interest than following currents or mapping out trends, I have to say I didn’t have such a bad time at all. My top ten is made up of pictures that I’m as enthusiastic about as I’ve ever been, and this year I’m being extra generous with my runners-up, all of which I believe will reward the close attention of any smart moviegoer. Still, you’ll note that my top ten contains a few more “obscure” foreign language titles than usual (although, in these days of online miracle and wonder, “obscure” is becoming a more and more relative term, thank the deity), which might say something about the state of American movies in 2004, which I’ll admit was kind of weird. Among other things, did you happen to see Phantom of the Opera? Aiyeee.
SIDEWAYS
I know, I know; what an out-of-left-field choice. But really, it is that good. I could go on about cowriter-director Alexander Payne’s beautifully observed characterizations, how he could be the American heir to Truffaut or Renoir, how lead actor Paul Giamatti has definitively redefined the shlub everyman, but to hell with it—I’ll just say that as a painful, uproarious story of humanity, this is a perfectly contained cinematic experience. And such things don’t come along all that often, you know?
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
A profound and profoundly moving sci-fi comedy (written by Charlie Kaufman) about memory and its relationship to our consciousness—how memory makes us what we are right now, in a sense—starring Jim Carrey. He’s great as a lovesick guy caught in a memory-erasure nightmare, but Kate Winslet, as his erstwhile girl, a lost soul whose quirkiness has gone stale, absolutely steals the picture. Director Michel Gondry’s poppified update of a Resnais time-trip is as formally audacious as it is emotionally acute.
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Which movie tops your list for 2004?
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| Sideways |
 15% |
| Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind |
50% |
| Million Dollar Baby |
9% |
| The Incredibles |
3% |
| Ray |
0% |
| The Aviator |
3% |
| Finding Neverland |
6% |
| Kill Bill-Vol. 2 |
6% |
| I Heart Huckabees |
6% |
| Other |
3% |
TOTAL ENTRIES: 34
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