The Top Ten

Here we are on December 31st. So it is time to annouce my list my top 10 films of 2004. However I should qualify this by saying that there are plenty of films I haven't seen that might deserve mention otherwise. Films like "The Aviator" and "Million Dollat Baby".

10. The Bourne Supremacy - When a CIA operation to purchase classified Russian documents is blown by a rival agent--who then shows up in the sleepy seaside village where Bourne (Damon)and Marie (Potente) have been living under assumed names--the pair collapse their lives and head out. Bourne, who promised retaliation should anyone from his former life attempt contact, is forced to once again take up his life as a trained assassin to survive.

9. Finding Neverland - In this drama, we are told the story of how James M. Barrie (Depp) came up with the play Peter Pan. After some failed attempts at creating a well written play, Barrie finds himself in a park playing with his dog. Several moments later he will come to meet the inspiration for his next play, four small boys and a widowed mother, who seems to be growing weaker by the day. Soon, the whole town is talking about Barrie and the Davies family, which causes some rough waters in his marraige. But what comes from his experiences is the play that comes to be known as Peter Pan.

8. Baadassss! - Mario Van Peebles directs an honest and revealing portrait of his pioneering father. Mario now tells the story of the making of Melvin Van Peebles' landmark 1971 film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, including Melvin's struggles to raise money to fund the film under the guise of creating a black porno film. Despite death threats and temporarily losing sight in one eye, Melvin somehow managed to whip into shape a rag-tag, multi-racial crew and finish the film that would give birth to birth of a new era which was about to explode: Independent Black Cinema.

7. Hero - In ancient China, before the reign of the first emperor, warring factions throughout the Six Kingdoms plot to assassinate the most powerful ruler, Qin. When a minor official defeats Qin's three principal enemies, he is summoned to the palace to tell Qin the story of his surprising victory. Stunning visuals make this a classic.

6. Kinsey - Life story of Alfred Kinsey, a man driven to uncover the most private secrets of the nation, and a journey into the mystery of human behavior. In 1948 Kinsey irrevocably changed American culture and created a media sensation with his book "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male". Using the technique of his own famous sex interviews, story recounts the scientist's extraordinary journey from obscurity to global fame. Rebelling against the rigid piety of his home life, and drawn to the world of the senses, Kinsey becomes a Harvard-educated zoologist specializing in the study of gall wasps. After being hired to teach biology at Indiana University, Kinsey meets and marries a witty, freethinking female student, Clara McMillen. In the course of his teaching he discovers an astonishing dearth of scientific data on sexual behavior. When students seek him out for advice about sexual concerns and problems, he realizes that no one has done the clinical research that would yield reliable answers to their questions.

5. Broken Wings - The unexpected death of the family patriarch throws every member of the Ullmann clan off course. Widow Dafna takes to bed for three months and when she finally returns to her job at the maternity hospital, she has little time for her children. Eldest son, Yair drops out of school and adopts a fatalist attitude, shutting out his siblings and girlfriend. His twin sister Maya, a talented musician, feels the most guilt and is forced to act as a family caregiver at the expense of career opportunities. Bullied at school, younger son Ido responds by obsessively filming himself with a video camera and attempting dangerous feats. The baby sister, Bar, is woefully neglected. Preoccupied with their own misery, the family is barely a family anymore.

4. Dodgeball - Peter LaFleur is a charismatic underachiever and proprietor of a rundown gym called Average Joe's. The facility's ecclectic clientele of decidedly less-than-average Joes. Peter's humble gym catches the eye of White Goodman, the power-mullet-sporting, Fu-Manchu-d, egomaniacal owner of Globo Gym, a gleaming monolith of fitness. White intends to take over Average Joe's, and Peter's non-existent bookkeeping is making it all too easy for him. A foreclosing bank has stationed attorney Kate Veatch inside Average Joe's to finalize Globo's takeover of the gym. But Peter's boyish charms win her over and Kate joins his team of social rejects to beat the odds--and their own ineptitude--to try to save Average Joe's. How? A showdown dodgeball competition against Globo Gym.

3. Goodbye Lenin - East Germany, the year 1989: A young man protests against the regime. His mother watches the police arresting him and suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma. Some months later, the GDR does not exist anymore and the mother awakes. Since she has to avoid every excitement, the son tries to set up the GDR again for her in their flat. But the world has changed a lot...

2. Sideways - Miles Raymond, a failed writer and divorcé who teaches junior high school english takes his best friend, former hot actor Jack on a weeklong drive up to California's wine country. There they explore the nature of their failures and question their relationships. Jack, about to get married, has an affair with a woman and wonders whether he should call off his wedding. Miles questions whether or not he made the right choice while trying to form a relationship with the woman's best friend, a fellow onephile who is a waitress at a restaurant that he frequents often when visiting that part of the country.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Joel (Jim Carrey) is stunned to discover that his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has had her memories of their tumultuous relationship erased. Out of desperation, he contracts the inventor of the process, Dr. Howard Mierzwaik ('Tom Wilkinson'), to have Clementine removed from his own memory. But as Joel's memories progressively disappear, he begins to rediscover their earlier passion. From deep within the recesses of his brain, Joel attempts to escape the procedure. As Dr. Mierzwiak and his crew (Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Woo') chase him through the maze of his memories, it's clear that Joel just can't get her out of his head.

A Lesson About the Movies

It’s time for another lesson from the Filmbuff’s Guide to Moviegoing. Movies are a released on an informal schedule based upon their quality. If you can recognize this schedule, you should be able to determine the quality of a film before you even see it. It should be noted that this schedule applies to Hollywood studio films. American independent and especially foreign films do not follow this pattern.

January through mid-April: Bad movies. This is the one of the two times of year that studios release the films that even they know are bad. School is back in session and credit card bills are high. Additionally, people tend to me “movied-out” after a busy holiday season. With audiences trending smaller this time of year anyway, studios try to sneak out their garbage when no one will notice.

Mid-April through Mid-July: Summer blockbusters. This is when the big budget, big star, small plot, and small concept films are released. This is the time of summer vacation. As a result, action movies and sophomoric comedies dominate this time of year. The largest budget movies are released here and the most revenue is taken in. The quality of these films can be mixed.

Mid-July through Mid-October: Sleeper season. This is another time of the year where audience size is down and as a result so is movie quality. That being said, studios will try so sneak in sleeper films here. These are films that would probably crumble when facing heavy competition during other times of the year. This is the time of year that a smaller quality film like “Rush Hour” can lead the box office for several weeks.

Mid-October through December: The holiday/Oscar season. Movie studios want their films to win Oscar and will move better films or films with great performances to this time of year. They know that releasing a film closer to nomination time will help its chances. To qualify for an Oscar a film must be released in New York and LA (because they are the center of the world) by December 31st. For this reason, the best films will typically be released in December.