In an annual series, Every Movie Has a Lesson is going to look back twenty years to revisit, relearn, and reexamine a year of cinema history to share favorites, lists, and experiences from the films of that year. Here’s the report from 2004 (one year later than 20)!

PERSONAL Favorites

The Terminal, Ray, National Treasure, In Good Company, Troy, The Day After Tomorrow, Ocean’s Twelve, Dodgeball, The Perfect Score, Open Water, I, Robot, Spartan, Jersey Girl, Cellular, Ladder 49, Shark Tale, 13 Going on 30, Meet the Fockers

There’s a whole bunch of centrist Hollywood flavor on this list. Like much of the 00s after the 1990s, Hollywood still knew how to make mainstream comedies, reasonably contained action movies, and fun family movies (wink) a fair-to-middling elementary teacher could play in the classroom on a lazy day. The epics were epic then, and probably seen as tame today. That said, given me the likes of Troy, National Treasure, The Day After Tomorrow, and I, Robot over the IP noise of today. The same goes for smaller heroism like the fire department feels of Ladder 49, especially post-9/11. This batch of favorites also contains complete guilty pleasures like Dodgeball, Jersey Girl, 13 Going on 30, Meet the Fockers, and The Terminal. I know none of them needed to (or were going to) win Oscars then or now, but they count as comfort food viewing. There’s a chance I quote Dodgeball as much as Anchorman to this day. A critical reappraisal of Jersey Girl is sorely needed. I’ve been in its corner since Day 1.

Guilty Pleasures

Closer, The Dreamers, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Dawn of the Dead, The Punisher, The Phantom of the Opera, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Club Dread, Twisted, Walking Tall, Soul Plane, King Arthur, Paparazzi, Mr. 3000, Wimbledon, First Daughter, Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason, Flight of the Phoenix, Breakin’ All the Rules, Starsky and Hutch

These movies are a clear step down from rewatchability and seminal classics found in the section above. There’s quite a hodgepodge in this stack of broken toys of one sort or another. Take Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. That movie’s ambition is off-the-charts and likely exceeded its grasp, yet there’s something dynamite about it in solid moments. The same sentiment could be extended to King Arthur, The Phantom of the Opera, The Punisher, Starsky and Hutch, Paparazzi, Wimbledon, Walking Tall, and Flight of the Phoenix. In hindsight, there are movies that would be straight-up cancelled today, like Closer, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Club Dread, and Soul Plane.

OVERRATED

The Village, 50 First Dates, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Saw, Shaun of the Dead, Hellboy, Team America: World Police, The Passion of the Christ, Shrek 2, The Polar Express, The Grudge, Birth, Blade: Trinity, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Spanglish

I’m betting there are a bunch of high-profile movies on this category list here are in other people’s Top 20s, Top 10s, and Top 5s. For me, they didn’t take. Looking back, centrist or not as I was, this might have been the first year I started to wise up and push back a little. M. Night Shyamalan’s crappy twists, Jim Carrey’s grandstanding in gaudy makeup, Adam Sandler’s man-child schtick, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s silly sarcasm grew stale where I couldn’t take them seriously and haven’t since for a long time. Quentin Tarantino continued his Chatty Cathy train of failing to use an editor to trim the superfluousness. The spectre of Mel Gibson has semi-ruined my praise for The Passion of the Christ. I can’t get through Simon Pegg wailing about his mother in the final third of Shaun of the Dead after an awesome start and concept, especially for this none horror fan over here.

Rewatches Needed

Sideways, Kinsey, The Woodsman, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Beyond the Sea, Super Size Me, Man on Fire, Napoleon Dynamite, The Manchurian Candidate, Along Came Polly, Welcome to Mooseport, The Alamo, Donnie Darko, Thunderbirds. She Hate Me, Shall We Dance?, EUROTRIP

These are the ones, even after 20 years and change, I can’t make heads or tails about. I was too young to appreciate Sideways, Kinsey, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and their matching auteur filmmakers. Likewise, I was a shade too old to think Napoleon Dynamite was the greatest movie ever, connect with Donnie Darko, or care about Euro Trip when my beloved Road Trip still had me since 2000. My podcast partner Will Johnson raves about Thunderbirds and we just lost Gene Hackman, where I don’t remember his last movie of Welcome to Mooseport. Casual rewatches are needed on my part to see if the scales side one way or another.

Blind Spots

Primer, Bad Education, Vera Drake, The Door in the Floor, Mean Creek, Fahrenheit 9/11, Birth, Dogville, Maria Full of Grace, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Saved, Baadasssss!, I Heart Huckabees, Being Julia, The Sea Inside, The Motorcycle Diaries

Here are all the holes that come from being a 25-year-old working teacher and centrist. Look at all those titans of auteur filmmaking: Pedro Almodovar, Walter Salles, Istvan Szabo, Lars von Trier, Mike Leigh, Jonathan Glazer, David O. Russell, Michael Moore, and Alejandro Amenabar. Sheesh! What can I say? I was drinking Miller Lite more than Glenmorangie. Oh, who am I kidding, I still don’t drink scotch. Probably the top one I am actually curious to see in Primer, as a guy doing better about expanding his breadth and appreciation for time-bending movies.