Guess what guys? Here’s a list of movies I liked this year. IN FACT, it’s a list of the ten movies I like the very most. I liked them all, and would totally give a thumbs up to anyone who helped to make any of them (except Halle Berry)!
Well go ahead man, what are you waiting for!?
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Let’s just get right to business, my favorite films of the year – with the order sure to change a whole lot of times before I bite the bucket – are as follows:
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What makes this french film, based on the real life events of a paralyzed man who wrote a book by winking his eye, isn’t the strong story of the the likewise acting; but the unique voice of the movie’s director, Julian Schnabel. Beautiful, tragic and full of life without ever drawing attention to itself, it’s a joyous reminder that the greatest gift given to everyone is the imagination. Look for it to become the most praised foreign film of the year.
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It really bugs me that I’m giving the annoying Halle Berry a spot in both my best and worst of the year lists; but I’d be lying to myself if I said that Things We Lost in the Fire weren’t a strong film that doesn’t have any trouble doing what it wants to do. Mostly following the death of a father, husband and best friend (of a Benicio Del Toro character, who deserves an Oscar nom that the actor won’t get), the movie is about moving on and learning to take advantage of the good things in life. Susanne Bier directs this clean cut of cinema clearly and gracefully, matching the beauty of the story in every technical aspect. Read my review for more.
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I don’t know if this movie is making too many year-end lists – and I don’t know that it wholly deserves to – but for a style-over-substance guy like me, it’s at home in its top ten spot. I don’t have any complaints with the story; but everyone knows that this movie’s forte was its technical aspect. Action films age pretty badly; but will enough time ever pass that one shot of 300 won’t make you pump your fist and scream “Fuck Yeah?” Zack Snyder imagery, along with Larry Fong‘s pulpped, reddened photography were revolutionary for a studio picture, and one that will hopefully lead other films down less conventional visual paths.
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This documentary on two men racing for the world record high score at the classic Donkey Kong arcade game is one that’s destined to have a massive cult following. With archetypically good and bad characters like Steve Wiebe, an everyman father/teacher who’s always number two and Billy Mitchell, a selfish hot sauce salesman evil enough to be a bad guy played by Ben Stiller in a movie; King of Kong is too undeniably fun to dismiss. Documentaries, for whatever reasons, tend to deal with serious stories out of life; but this one proves that there’s no reason you can’t document something hilarious and outlandish in one too. You’ll never boo, hiss or applaud so much at a documentary.
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It’s long. It’s talky. But I can’t think of another movie to ever take so much advantage of its build-up in its last act. If all I saw of the movie were the first ninety minutes, it wouldn’t be on my list; but Quentin Tarantino‘s organic and most thrilling car chase in god knows how long wins every speck of attention in your brain, plastering you to your seat and sending you into cheers for characters you didn’t even think you liked, just for saying something as simple as “Nuh-uh, Motherfucker!” That, and Tarantino’s aesthetic tribute to exploitation cinema is unknockable – it’s a perfect homage that, at the same time, awesomely outdoes any movie or style it’s imitating. With a movie this fresh after fifteen years of directing, Tarantino isn’t losing his edge – he’s just getting started.
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The most flawed movie on this list, Alpha Dog just might be the most emotionally powerful. It’s preachy and melodramatic around the edges, but the inside is a 100% authentic, believable story about a bunch of not-a-boy, not-yet-a-man guys trying to act tough; but they don’t realize how stupidly they’re behaving when they kidnap the kid brother of a guy they have beef with. It’s a furious but solid argument against the machismo so many guys at the beginning of adulthood feel like they have to project. I don’t know that I needed two prologues, a home video montage or worst of all, Sharon Stone crying in a bad fat-suit; but everything else in the film will get you more worried and angry than anything else this year. You can go back a long ways and read my first opinion of the film.
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Did anyone expect a giddy, pulpy horror picture about monsters coming from another dimension to be so damn good? I didn’t, but I have a hard time thinking of this movie as anything short of amazing now. Director Frank Darabont takes this scary thriller the philosophical route – he’s more interested in the demons that reveal themselves in the frightened human than the ones that walk on eight towering, hairy legs. Let’s give some marks to Marcia Gay Harden for her just-right over-the-top performance as a self-appointed prophet, along with everyone else in this strong ensemble cast.
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The Coens’ return to their merciless, humorless but often hilarious style of filmmaking is probably the most heralded film of the year, and I’m not disagreeing on this one. Javier Bardem is damn petrifying as the grim reaper, and the everything else about this clean, ironic film makes it the most Coenish to date. Haunting and lingering, this movie about the lack of glory that inhibits our lives is one you won’t ever forget.
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Every one of the five years spent waiting for Paul Thomas Anderson‘s follow-up to the dizzy but exquisite Punch-Drunk Love were painful – but at least now we know they weren’t in vain. Anderson’s exploration of business, religion and ethics feels so easily collected, only a real pro could do it. Of course this is just as much P.T.A.‘s show as it is Daniel Day-Lewis’, who slowly makes his oil baron character more and more disconnected from reality until he finally pops out and off of humanity. I could go on, but I think I’ll stop since I just wrote a review for the film last week.
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I’m surprised to see it at number one, and to be fair it only beats out the number two film after hours of thought; but my favorite movie of the year is probably Zodiac. Few people can take a two-and-a-half hour+ picture that takes place over a quarter century without a resolution this satisfying and tense; but you have to hand it to thrill-master David Fincher that he handles the job with flying colors. The terror and mythology of a serial killer run rampant through the Bay area keep this massive picture on the tracks, headed for one conclusion and one conclusion alone. The gorgeous digital picture handles the retrospect perfectly – it gives us the allure of the 70s while looking current and undated. And, while I’m automatically going to love any movie with Robert Downey Jr. in it, he’s got some great company in Zodiac with the boyish Jake Gyllenhaal and the frustrated Mark Ruffalo, alongside countless thankless character actors that only pop up for one or two scenes. I can’t say it’s my number one film by a mile, but it’s a movie I haven’t stopped thinking about since I saw it in March, and I don’t know that I ever will.