SIVACRACY.NET

Joe Belk here. This is my first post to Sivacracy.

Here's the first draft of my 2004 Best Movies list: yet another disadvantage of being a Blue Man in a Red State is that the best films get here two months late. My favorite film of 2003, The Barbarian Invasions, didn't reach Austin until Leap Day and San Antonio until Spring Break or so. So there's some potentially terrific stuff (the Almodovar and Eastwood films, for example) that won't get here for weeks. But what has arrived has been pretty much over par. It's a small consolation, I know, but a year so disastrous in other ways-- from politics to basketball-- turned out to be a good time to go to the movies.

Best picture
1. Sideways
2. House of Flying Daggers
3. Kill Bill, Volume 2
4. Before Sunset
5. I (Heart) Huckabees
6. The Aviator
7. Hero
8. Maria Full of Grace
9. Finding Neverland
10. Mean Girls
11. The Flower of Evil
12. The Motorcycle Diaries

Best Actress
1. Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace
2. Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
3. Laura Linney, Kinsey
4. Sandrine Bonnaire, Intimate Strangers
5. Kate Winslet, Finding Neverland

Best Actor
1. Paul Giamatti, Sideways
2. Jamie Foxx, Ray
3. Jamie Foxx, Collateral
4. Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator
5. Clive Owen, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Best Supporting Actress
1. Virginia Madsen, Sideways
2. Naomi Watts, I (Heart) Huckabees
3. Sandra Oh, Sideways
4. Maggie Cheung, Hero
5. Kirsten Dunst, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Best Supporting Actor
1. Tony Leung, Hero
2. Michael Madsen, Kill Bill, Volume 2
3. Jude Law, I (Heart) Huckabees and The Aviator
4. Peter Sarsgaard, Garden State and Kinsey
5. Thomas Haden Church, Sideways