As we come to the holiday season, I like to look back on the best movies of the year. It's a little tradition of mine. Lots of newspapers, TV shows, and movie critics have taken to stealing my style and coming up with their own lists of bests and worsts. Rest assured, loyal readers, that my list is the one, true list. The list by which all others are judged (Oh, and before we start, I should say that I don't see kids' movies. Nothing against 'em, I just don't have kids...and I didn't see Babel yet. So don't jump down my throat about how that's the best movie of the year. I'll get to it, I swear).
The list is presented in no particular order, so feel free to arrange them in a manner that pleases you.
Brick Man, if you haven't seen Brick stop reading this and go see it. I'm serious, I'll wait....Okay, now wasn't that awesome? Not only does Brick breathe life into the stale and calcifying hard boiled genre, it does it with some serious style. I thought Joseph Gordon Levitt was a force, and the supporting cast more than holds its own. It also gets my vote for best score.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby I've always believed that if a movie doesn't entertain you, it's failed, regardless of how complex or intellectually stimulating it is. The best time I had in the theater this year was seeing Taladega Nights at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. Yes, Will Farrell was there, wearing a big white cowboy hat. Yes, the theater was packed. And yes, the movie was hilarious. Isn't it great to see a very funny comedy in a theater full of people? Nothing is ever as funny as it is when there are six hundred other people laughing along with you. I think Durkheim said something about this phenomenon once, but I can't quite remember what.
The Passenger (rereleased in 2006) See how it is? You think you've got me pegged as a low brow maroon, then I switch it up and throw a contemplative European art film at you. The first twenty minutes of the movie are mesmerizing (okay, some people find them boring, but those people are wrong) as Jack Nicholson wanders through the African desert in search of rebel camp. When he returns to his hotel, he finds his neighbor dead. Of course, he steals his identity, and becomes embroiled in illicit arms trading. It's a meditative film, concerned with identity and responsibility. It features the usual lush scenery of an Antonioni film. If you're a patient viewer, it is a real treat.
Friends with Money A terrific look at the lives of the affluent (to varying degrees) citizens of Los Angeles, and their broke friend (played by Jennifer Aniston). Money is something everybody seems obsessed with (at least in America) yet few people have the nerve to talk about it in such a subtle, nuanced way. It's a spot-on slice of life film.
Inside Man When I was growing up in upstate New York, I used to watch movies on WPIX. This was before the days of UPN or the WB or CW or whatever it's called now, and stations like WPIX had very little original programming to show (In fact, they were so desperate to show something that during the holidays, they would broadcast an image of a burning yule log for hours on end. True story.), so they showed movies from the 70s. Great movies like The French Connection, Dog Day Afternoon, Taking of Pelham 123...The list is endless. Most of them were crime films about New York, full of urban angst and paranoia. Spike Lee has taken that genre and put a brilliant post 9/11 spin on it with this heist film. The plot is ingenious, the acting is terrific (There's Ziggy, from season 2 of The Wire!), and it manages to get tighter as it goes along.
Borat I was in France when this came out, but I wasn't surprised at all by the box office it did. I remember first seeing the Borat character on Da Ali G Show, and telling everyone I knew about it. I thought the movie was very good, but a little loose on plot. It felt like a couple of Borat sketches sewn together. The scenes in Kazakstan were the best in the movie.
The Departed Everybody's favorite movie of the year. I'm not as on board as some people. For one thing, I think some of the Boston accents were a little overblown. Not Good Will Hunting overblown, but still... I have a problem now, whenever I watch a movie with a lot of cops in it, I compare it to The Wire and it just never holds up. It always seems like guys playing dress up and prancing around on stage pretending to be cops and gangsters. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks so. Still, it's a twisty, sharp thriller with really, really good dialogue (Mark Walberg, I'm looking in your direction). DiCaprio deserves whatever awards he pulls down for this.
Also, I enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep is my pick for best actress. I like when people win for performances that are fun to watch. It's a film that appeals to almost everyone, because we've all had bosses like that -- it doesn't matter if it was working for Conde Nast, Cargill, or Carl's Jr.
There are still quite a few movies on my "to see" list, so this could change, but the above movies, I'm solidly behind. Check back in a week, when I might have seen Stranger than Fiction, Babel, The Queen, The Good German, Blood Diamond or The Good Shepherd. A lot could change between now and December 31.
Feel free to post your own responses and your own lists. 'Tis the season to be sharing, afterall.