Oscar Got It Wrong: Best Actress 2004

The Contenders:

Annette Bening: Being Julia
Kate Winslet: The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Catalina Sandino Moreno: Maria Full of Grace
Hilary Swank: Million Dollar Baby (winner)
Imelda Staunton: Vera Drake

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 2004

The Contenders:

The Aviator
The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (winner)
Hotel Rwanda
The Incredibles
Vera Drake

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Film: The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on The Nook.

I would love to know how Charlie Kaufman’s mind works. He creates the strangest and most compelling worlds in his scripts and fortunately manages to get equally visionary people to then film them. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a case in point. In this case, though, I have a strange indicator of where the idea may have come from: cartoonist Carol Lay. It’s possible that this was an entirely independent idea, of course, but Lay created a comic called “Repeat Performance” in which couples repeatedly go to a service to have their memories wiped only to get back together afterward.

And that is the story here. Joel (Jim Carrey) has had a relationship with a woman named Clementine (Kate Winslet). After a few years and a bitter break-up, Joel discovers that Clem has gone to a company called Lacuna which eliminates him completely from her memory. For Clementine, her relationship with Joel no longer exists. In pain, Joel decides to do the same thing to her. He meets with Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkenson), the creator of the process, and arranges for the erasing to happen that night.