What a weird year this is. The big trend this year is the ascent of Mexico’s Big 3. Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu each had big releases this year. While Inarritu got the best picture nomination, Del Toro and Cuaron’s films have MUCH longer legs as you’ll see below.
THIS. IS. NOT A JOKE. Zak Snyder’s macho fest is really fun to watch, and did some cool stuff the action genre has copied over and over since, like slow motion/freeze frame in the middle of a fight scene. Six Packs for the win!
Spike Lee isn’t just great with movies about race relations. This heist movie is crazy tense and well designed, using Denzel Washington and Clive Owen to charismatic great effect.
An offbeat family movie that wins you over. The great cast takes the quirkiness of the characters and story and makes it into something special and fun.
Sacha Baron Cohen meanders across America with hilarious results. The pseudo documentary style gives the laughs more authenticity and the jokes more bite, as Cohen destroys some of the ludicrous customs and beliefs of a wide swath of US citizens.
Our most boring Presidential candidate turns out to be a pretty compelling filmmaker! Al Gore’s documentary on global warming smartly and entertainingly dives us head first into the shrinking glaciers and heat indicies of a world slowly going on fire.
This film is entertainment incarnate. In an iconic career, this might be Meryl Streep’s best performance, playing the domineering editor of Runway Magazine as she teaches frumpy Anne Hathaway how to look chic in the most enjoyable way possible.
A concept this great would be decent in any filmmaker’s hands. But in Alfonso Cuaron’s, this world where children haven’t been born in 18 years is something eerie, terrifying and sad. Cuaron and Clive Owen guide on on this thrill ride, which provides some of the most jaw dropping moments of the year.
Martin Scorcese takes the Japanese film Internal Affairs, moves it to Boston, and hires every great actor in Hollywood. What results is one of the best crime epics in recent memory, pitting Matt Damon against Leo DiCaprio in a cat and mouse game of criminals and police.
When someone asks what an adult fairytale looks like, recommend this film. Grotesque mythical creatures and warfare collide in Spain in Guillermo Del Toro’s masterpiece, complete with one of the best endings I’ve seen in a movie. Period.
September 11, 2001 is a day seared into my memory. Though there were lots of tragedies on that day, Flight 93 willed itself to not be one of them. Director Paul Greengrass uses unknown actors and a direct storytelling that captures the confusion and terror of the day, coupled with the harrowing final 15 minutes of truly selfless heroism.
