1. The Host
Crazy Korean monster movie becomes the most poignant, hilarious serio-comedy of family dysfunction in many a moon. Love the frenzied energy and wit, the pure creative ballsiness. Oh, and it's an America-bashing political allegory too (for those who dig that sort of thing).
2. Zodiac
A funky, skin-crawling All the President's Men. Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo all have such distinctive rhythms as actors; watching them together is like experiencing some weird jazz performance where each player is piping in from a different universe.
3. The Lives of Others
Best performance of the year: The late Ulrich Muhe as a tortured bureaucrat spying on the man who's fucking the woman he loves. "Gripping" is too mild a word to describe this portrait of the secret, painful underpinnings of fascist zeal.
4. No Country for Old Men
The Coens once made snarky, blood-soaked thrillers; now they make grimly sardonic, blood-soaked thrillers with apocalyptic overtones. Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh is the creepiest bastard since Lecter made us all swear off fava beans.
5. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Lumet's L'Argent - a distillation of all the 83-year-old director's moral knowledge, presented without fuss or worry. Still not convinced Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of our best actors? Watch the scene with him and Marisa Tomei in the car after his confrontation with his father.
6. After the Wedding
No one does revelatory family-related melodrama like the Danish. Plus Mads Mikkelson is weirdly hot.
7. American Gangster
A good old-fashioned rootin-tootin' crime drama full of swearing tough guys and those scenes where everyone sits in the cluttered meeting room pinning stuff to bulletin boards and sucking down doughnuts. Russell Crowe achieves a scruffy huggableness.
8. Atonement
Joe Wright is the master of discreetly-elicited romantic yearning in a period setting. Keep giving throaty, alluring, slightly off-kilter performances like this, Keira dear, and the Crabster may have to stop ripping you. Oh, and who can resist wet-eyed James McAvoy? Not I.
9. Once
Okay, if you haven't seen this you have to. It's this tiny little indie flick about a Dublin street musician with these incredible songs he's written and a Czech immigrant woman who sells magazines and flowers on the street who helps him polish the songs up and get a recording studio...it's just an adorable little movie about the joy of making music and the first flushes of love (without the dopey pay-offs).
10. Control/La vie en rose
Couldn't choose between these two musical biopics. Control's a bit more successfully arty plus Sam Riley is the hottest mess in forever as the nutty dude from Joy Division who hung himself. But...Marion Cotillard is so devastating as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose that I just had to include it.
Other cool stuff:
Michael Shannon's nutzoid performances in Bug and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Shia LaBeouf in Disturbia. Just thought he was cool in that. Oh, and Transformers. Rip me if you want - I laughed.
Those couple minutes of surrealism in Pirates 3 - you know, the only time that piece of shit became a decent movie.
Ed Harris's hairpiece in Gone Baby Gone (sarcasm).
Chris Cooper in Breach. Some of his coolness nearly rubbed off on Ryan Phillippe, but alas, Phillippe remained Phillippe.
Sienna Miller's boots in Interview.
Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises. Viggo is the coolest evaaaah.
