Movie of the Year?

It's too early to declare a movie the Best of 2004 yet...There are too many films I haven't seen. Life Aquatic obviously will be a contender. Scorsese's Gangs of New York was my favorite movie of a few years ago, and his Aviator opens any week now. And there's plenty of other notable fare I haven't yet gotten to: A Very Long Engagement, Bad Education, The Sea Inside and, of course, Meet the Fockers. I hear that's a lock for sound effects editing.

But at this early date, the front-runner in my race is a little film called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, written by my personal hero and favorite screenwriter-of-the-moment, Charlie Kaufman.

I'm not gonna bore you with a regular-old review of the movie. It's available on DVD now, so buy it at Amazon or Best Buy or Tower rent it here. Suffice it to say it's a mind-bending comedy/romance from a very weird French guy and the dude who wrote Adaptation and Being John Malkovich. The movie has a kind of magic glow to it. I've never been a huge fan of wistful films about lost love, having relatively little experience with true, undying love in my short life, but anyone who has been through romantic tribulations can relate, I'm certain, to some of the material in this film. I just rewatched the DVD, and, swear to Jeebus, welled up during a few scenes thinking about relationships gone wrong.

Mercifully, I was alone at the time, and no one was around to see it. And no one reads this blog! So, the secret will die with me.

Anyway, that's enough torrid confessional from me. Rent Eternal Sunshine. It's been a difficult decision, debating which movie I prefer - this or Alexander Payne's hilarious observational comedy Sideways, but I've seen both films a few times now, and really feel like Sunshine is more my speed. Less sarcastic, more bittersweet. But hey, that's just me. They're both really terrific movies.