2004 was in many ways a pretty typical movie year.  The majority of movies released in America were mindless crap aimed at 13 year old boys with attention deficit disorder.  But it was also a year in which politics returned to film in full force, with numerous films from both the left and right weighing in to try and influence the election.  And most of those, both from the right and left, were crap as well.  As usual, most of the good movies were saved for the end of the year so they’d have a better chance at getting Oscar nominations.  That means, as usual, there are a number of movies that could potentially make this list I haven’t seen yet.  And of course, there are some movies I’ve just missed.  So bear that in mind when reading this list.  Still, I’m pretty confident my top 3 picks won’t be changing, and I liked all of these movies enough that I have no hesitation in recommending any of them.   

1.  ‘Million Dollar Baby’
2.  ‘Kill Bill Volume 2’
3.  ‘Shaun of the Dead’
4.  ‘Mean Creek’
5.  ‘Spider-Man 2’
6.  ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’
7.  ‘The Incredibles’
8.  ‘Gozu’
9.  ‘Baadasssss!’
10.  ‘Coffee and Cigarettes’
 

Worst/Biggest disappointments of 2004

Whittling this list down to just ten wasn’t as hard as it would have been if I had watched more movies this year.  Let’s just say with the small amount of free time and money at my disposal, I knew enough to avoid obvious crap like ‘Meet the Fockers’, ’50 First Dates’, ‘Against the Ropes’, and 90 percent of the cinematic abortions that Hollywood tries to foist on the public.  But everyone slips up now and then, so here's 10 chunks out of my life that I'll never get back..

 1.  ‘Resident Evil:  Apocalypse’:  I didn’t know it was possible to take a shit on film stock and project it directly onto a movie screen.  You learn something new every day.
2.  ‘Starsky and Hutch’:  Why do they keep turning old TV shows into movies?  And why am I stupid enough to watch the results?
3.  ‘Napoleon Dynamite’:  About as entertaining as a wet firecracker. 
4.  ‘Jersey Girl’:  At least J-Lo exits the movie early on.  I wasn’t so lucky.
5.  ‘The Stepford Wives’:  Should have been left at the altar.
6.  ‘The Passion of the Christ’:  Not because it’s anti-Semitic (which I don’t feel it is), not because it’s too gory (bring on the blood, I always say), and not because it’s Christian propaganda (I could care less either way) but because it’s just bad filmmaking.
7.  ‘Along Came Polly’:  A pathetic attempt at ripping off ‘There’s Something About Mary’.  Ben Stiller has no shame (for further proof, see ‘Starsky & Hutch’).
8.  ‘Chronicles of Riddick’:  The latest phase in Vin Diesel’s master plan to make everyone forget how promising an actor he was in ‘Boiler Room’. 
9.  ‘Around the World in 80 Days’:  An all around disaster.
10.  ‘Boa vs. Python’:  Even going into this with incredibly low expectations I wasn't prepared for the depths of crappiness this movie delivers.

Eddie Fleisher - Movies 

1. ‘Finding Neverland’
2. ‘Napoleon Dynamite’
3. ‘Fahrenheit 911’
4. ‘Garden State’
5. ‘Goodbye Lenin’
6. ‘Love Me If You Dare’
7. ‘Dodgeball:  A True Underdog Story’
8. ‘Polar Express’
9. ‘Ray’
10. ‘Zatoichi : The Blind Swordsman’