I didn't see many movies last year, but I did see four worth talking about.

1. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"
D: Michel Gondry, W: Charlie Kaufman

"Adaptation" was the greatest writer's block exercise in the history of writing. Taking the old adage, "Write through it," to its logical extreme, Charlie Kaufman followed "Being John Malkovich" with a movie about himself and his fictional brother writing a screen adaptation of Susan Orleans's The Orchid Thief, which was largely about the trouble he had writing a screen adaptation of Susan Orleans's The Orchid Thief. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is the true thematic follow-up to "Malkovich," and is perhaps the better film for its lack of a pop gimmick and the seriousness with which it handles its fantastical elements.

The movie, Kaufman's fourth produced screenplay, feels almost like it could've opened just as "Malkovich" closed, John Cusack's interminable longing replaced with Jim Carrey's unexplainable emptiness. Kaufman again shows a deft touch when rending emotion and delivers the kind of love story that might not make sense to anybody who's never been one of those characters. It's a story that demands to be seen again, not because it tries to trick you, but because it builds in self-supporting layers.

Kaufman is the most vital, dynamic writer in Hollywood right now, and he could do much worse than to work with Michel Gondry again. Gondry, who did a staid directing job on Kaufman's similarly staidly written "Human Nature," takes the same leap here that Spike Jonze did with "Malkovich," providing a level of detail that turns an interesting story into an immersive one. The way he shoots the film leaves you increasingly disoriented, until you find yourself as unsure as the characters are of quite what's going on.

2. "Fahrenheit 9/11"
D/W: Michael Moore

I can't wait -- CAN'T WAIT -- for Billy Crystal's musical ode to the year of the documentary at the Oscars. He'll enter from stage left, dressed as Usama bin Laden, sing a bunch of "funny" stuff and finish by eating a super-sized Big Mac value meal.

That "Fahrenheit 9/11" made over $100,000,000, more than quadrupling the record-setting gross brought in by Moore's "Bowling For Columbine," is less important than the doors it opened for other full-length documentaries. Two of the year's most important films, both of which I wish I could've forced my students to watch, are "Outfoxed" and "Control Room," and they wouldn't have gotten as much exposure as they did if Moore hadn't made the best piece of agit-pop since "Fortunate Son."

How will this film look in 100 years? In 50? 20? Will the Democratic Party see in its former self a reflection of the Republican Party of the early 1960's, weak-willed and trading any concession for the promise of living one more day? Will the members of the Generations X and Y see an of-the-moment "Apocalypse Now," pulling back the curtain for an audience unwilling to disbelieve? Will those Americans yet to be born even begin to comprehend the historical reality of what they're seeing, that their parents and grandparents demanded an unprovoked, unjustified war that turned into an unmitigated disaster? How will we explain to them that the voices of reason were the voices most likely to be silenced, even after they were proven right?

In the last several weeks, Michael Moore has become the scapegoat for Democratic Party leaders who are unable or unwilling to accept their own incompetence and ideological rudderlessness. Is it any wonder that the man who made so clear their failure in attacking George Bush on the issue of Iraq should become the target of their rage (or that Howard Dean, the anti-war alternative in the primaries and now a candidate for DNC chair, should be similarly hated)?

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is Moore's best film, but still occasionally suffers from his weaknesses as a filmmaker. I generally enjoy his stunts, but I think they work better in a TV setting (TV Nation, The Awful Truth) and when he tried to get members of Congress to enlist their kids it just felt out of place. This was a rarity, though, as Moore keeps himself out of the spotlight and allows the story to tell itself as much as possible. As he told Katie Couric last summer, the pro-war story got two years of nearly uninterrupted play in the mainstream media; the most important thing this film could ever have done was give the other story two hours on a canvas screen.

3. "Garden State"
D/W: Zach Braff

Adderall is the new drug of choice among end-of-semester crammers, according to one of the campus papers. It's prominence appears to be a product of the timeline; Adderall is an ADD medication and today's 20-somethings are the first of the ADD generation to get to college. The pills they're taking have been prescribed to them.

I grew up in a small, remote town a few years before the wave of overprotecting and hyperstabilizing children crested over rural America. I'm 25 now, but I never had to wear a bike helmet, frequently rode in the car without a seat belt and didn't get my weirdness stamped out with Prozac4Kidz�. Sometimes I got hurt and sometimes I had fun and sometimes I was happy and sometimes I wasn't. I learned things and grew up. When I got to college I was confident in my ability to correctly interpret and answer questions, and in my ability to learn from my mistakes. I thought my classmates were basically the same, but now I'm unsure that I wasn't an anomaly.

The students that I now teach -- sophomores and juniors in the fall, freshmen and sophomores in the spring -- require near-constant hand-holding. At least a sizable minority are unable to make decisions regarding their classwork without clearing them (or trying to) with their TA's or professors. They are deathly afraid of B's. I know that this sounds like the sort of thing everybody says when they achieve a certain amount of distance from the "young" generation, but come on! These kids have been micromanaged for 20 years, and it should come as no surprise that they now freeze up when left on their own.

That said, Zach Braff has captured something in "Garden State." As a 20-something struggling actor overloaded with anti-depressants by his psychiatrist father, he's something of a reawakening Harold to the Maude played by Natalie Portman's 20-something eccentric epileptic who still lives at home with a mother who doesn't seem to find it out of the ordinary. It's tempting to say that the wave of revelations about the terrible state of Generation Y is well and clearly over now that Time and Tom Wolfe have had their say, but I really think "Garden State" brings something to the table that nothing else has. It's the same kind of statement that "Clerks" made, but more sincere, and a little bit saccharine (I'll admit, I could've done without that bit at the end).

I've skipped around and I've struggled to find myself, but I've never felt like I had to overcome any barriers to that. But I'm still close enough to it that I can see other people's barriers, and Braff has done something special in putting them on film.

4. "The Incredibles"
D/W: Brad Bird

Straight-ahead superheroes don't work in live-action films. Sorry. "Spider-Man" stunk. The "Superman" movies are crap. "Batman" was interesting as an exercise in Burtonia, and to see Michael Keaton be cool, but the costumed stuff was a joke. I say that as someone with a long history of reading superhero comics. It's not that I have any real problems with the superhero genre, it's just that it's too fantastical for suspension of disbelief to work with real people. It's got to be animated.

With "The Incredibles," Brad Bird follows his look at the superhero-as-man's-ideal, "The Iron Giant," with a look at the superhero-as-man. His character studies of the leading supercouple are superb statements on modern living (more in line with "American Beauty" and "Office Space" then Bird's own 1999 film) and his postmodern presentation of the superhero milieu sits comfortably alongside those of comic scribes such as Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid.

As impressive as Bird's writing is, I was amazed that his direction and Pixar's animation were able to so completely surpass everything else the studio has ever done. This is Pixar's first action movie and its first to feature all humanoid characters. Even though the human model hasn't changed that much (compare Dash to Andy from "Toy Story," produced ten years ago) they employ it in a way that allows for perfect suspension of disbelief, with each character's features accentuated just enough to make the movie look like a three-dimensional comic book. Telling a story primarily about humans was Pixar's last hurdle, and I'm not sure what sort of innovations they'll be pursuing in the future.