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Created May 12, 2013 06:38AM PST • Edited May 12, 2013 06:40AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Every once in a while, you walk into a movie and get completely surprised. There we all were a few years ago wondering why Hollywood was so committed to Jim Carrey and his endless desire to be recognized as a “serious” actor. Did Joe Montana insist to play linebacker or was winning super bowls enough to catapult his self-esteem into a place where therapists everywhere were organizing bake sales in the absence of work? Instead, Kate the Great turns in the performance of a lifetime(see below), a quirky script comes to life with a great cast and New York seems more than the Siberia it has become. Movies are final frontier of the mind and yours will enjoy its time with Clementine.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   The cast performance as a whole was very good to great depending on how you judge Kate the Great as Clementine. For me, it was the performance I was seeking from a woman for a lifetime. But Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst were perfect as underlings in research roles, and Tom Wilkinson steadies the ship in his role.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

   I enjoyed Jim Carrey throughout much of his career with the pinnacle occurring in Dumb and Dumber, and within that event, most vividly when he declines the bus ride of a lifetime at the end. In this great flick, his performace is so strong that his narrated train rides, assessing where he is and who is on the train with him, allow you to feel as disoriented as he is, even though you paid to keep track of it all. But great actors turn-in performances like this all the time and it is never said for too long about great actors that they are waiting for a role to showcase their skills.

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

   But then there is the magic of movies. One nauseating dimension of our movie going experience as Baby Boomers is the endless social justice lesson on civil and equal rights. After 30 years, we get it. Rarely anymore do we get to see a performance where a woman just naturally likes a guy, or even guys in general. Baroness Karen Blixen was one such role. We had a moment when Anna Farris tackled Ryan Reynold in Just Friends. But the best effort for me so far has been Clementine. Thank God Kate Winslet read the script and said yes. When a fella says I do at his wedding he is contractually agreeing to being married once to five different women, and Clementine is that primer for the observant male. Maybe it isn’t much of a stretch to have a loyal girlfriend in a movie like this, but Kate transformed the role to the level of perfect girlfriend. Thankfully, Kate is easy on the eyes, is as sweet as a California strawberry, and somehow communicates that when she utters the “death do us part” line, she means it.

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

   Ruffalo lead the charge in the supporting role space making the entire scenario of how a young man might become distracted during something as serious as memory erasure believable, but the dynamic among Wood, Wilkinson and Ruffalo on this otherwise cutting edge research team is spot on and obvious to anyone who has had their research funded during grad school.

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is likely to remain in my top ten favorite movies for the rest of my life. I walked out of the theater amazed at the performances I witnessed and how differently the movie finalized from my perceptions of the previews and reviews. I still can’t imagine the movie having any other title. I hope my funeral is attended by dozens of Clementines. I am impressed that Joel Barish’s narratives on the train are so eerily familiar to those I see in the eyes at airports, check-out lines and hotels around the world. I can’t believe that America’s version of Siberia came to life, the boldness of filming such a vibrant effort in winter in a place without sun. I was surprised that a movie that seemed at first destined to the SyFy channel is better suited for repeats on the Classic Movie channel once the constitutional amendment forbidding the showing of Shawshenk is passed.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Really Great 4.5

13. Music Really Great 4.5

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.3

17. Sex Innocent 1.3

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

19. Rudeness Salty 1.7

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0