1. No Country for Old Men
This was a "wow" movie in every way. The Coen Brothers placed you smack in the
middle of the arid hills of west Texas
and made you feel every bit of the knife-edge tension of a three-way pursuit of
stolen drug money. Javier Bardem portrayed one of the most steely-eyed,
memorable bad guys ever, with Josh Brolin's everyman and Tommy Lee Jones' weary
sheriff never quite able to outwit him. Atmospheric and utterly gripping.
2. Sicko
The revelations and "inconvenient truths" of Michael Moore's hard-hitting
documentary on America's
deficient healthcare system far outweighed any little flaws. With testimony
from victims, administrators and others, Moore
shows the gaping hole at the heart of America's
profit-driven corporate methodology, and the trail of misery along the way.
Unmissable.
3. Once
One of the sleeper hits of the year, this deeply affecting movie told the story
of two musicians -- an Irish folkie and a Czech immigrant -- who meet by chance
and start casually making music together, learning a lot about friendship,
creativity and hope in the process.
4. Eastern Promises
As a fan of director David Cronenberg and stars Viggo Mortensen and Naomi
Watts, it would've been hard for me to not like this unsettling, provocative
movie about London's underground
Russian crime community. Mortensen gives one of his best performances as a mob
chauffeur whose motives are hard to pin down, and the edgy storyline -- about
the international sex trade, a child of unknown lineage and the darkest
imaginable version of "family" values -- kept you engrossed, if sometimes
simply grossed out.
5. Into the Wild
Sean Penn's expansive film about Chris McCandless, the upper-class young man
who decided to drop out of society and live in the wilds, was a beautiful and
compelling piece of work. Penn shot in most of the areas where McCandless
journeyed, including the Alaskan frontier where the would-be rebel starved to
death. Emile Hirsch does a more than credible turn in the title role, with nice
supporting work by Hal Holbrook, Catherine Keener and others. But Penn's camera
and sweeping aesthetic were the real stars here.
6. Gone Baby Gone
Although there were a few things I didn't care for in this film, and it's about
10 or 15 minutes too long, as a debut directorial project by Ben Affleck, it
was astonishing. What starts out as the story of a child kidnapping develops
into a searing study of different forms of selfishness and the two honest but
naïve freelance investigators (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan, both
terrific) who are just trying to return a lost child to its mother, but find
that they're in for some serious repercussions. Strong, gutsy stuff.
7. Across the Universe
There was something charmingly uncynical in this lavish, psychedelic musical
about the '60s using Beatle songs (sung by the actors) to tell its story.
Director Julie Taymor really loves these songs and provided fresh contexts for
all of them, and the actors (including Evan Rachel Wood) mostly did a terrific job
singing classics we've never heard like this before. The set pieces were
colorful and sometimes delirious, and the phantasmagoric scene that accompanies
the a cappella version of "Because" is one of the most beautiful chunks of
celluloid I've seen all year.
8. Enchanted
A funny thing happened while I was watching this updated Disney fairytale about
a princess sent to modern-day New York:
I became about ten years old again. Maybe it was the temporary immersion into
innocence and old-fashioned storytelling again, or maybe it was seeing how much
fun the actors -- including the adorable Amy Adams, James Marsden and Susan
Sarandon -- were having with their stylized roles. Whatever the case, I
surrendered to this movie's colorful, sometimes cliché-ridden landscape and
enjoyed the heck out of it.
9. Taxi to the Dark Side
I saw several documentaries about the Iraq quagmire in 2007, and this was one
of the most compelling. Director Alex Gibney takes as his starting point the
sad tale of an innocent Afghan taxi driver who died in U.S.
custody in 2002 and proceeds to investigate the torture practices, questionable
detentions and authorized denial/doublespeak U.S.
officials routinely engaged in at Abu Graib, Afghanistan
and Guantanamo Bay.
Key personnel appear on camera with their versions of events, and you end up
with a much clearer understanding of the extent of U.S.
culpability in this prolonged conflict. Not fun, but enormously interesting.
10. Lars and the Real Girl
Another film that isn't perfect, but its value comes primarily in its unique
aesthetic: an entire community comes together in support of a disturbed young
man (Ryan Gosling as a headcase who brings home an inflatable girl and proceeds
to act as if she's totally real), while the entire cast manages the unique feat
of being likable if somewhat idealized. Emily Mortimer and Kelli Garner are
both fetching in their roles, and Patricia Clarkson plays an unconventional
therapist. The movie treads carefully between the comical and the poignant, and
ends up being strangely life affirming, despite its unsavory premise. | Kevin
Renick
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