Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker. The Hurt Locker vs. Avatar. I sidestepped this best picture conversation personally. You won’t find either of those films on my top 10 list for the year. Partially because I couldn’t lock into either of them like I did the films above it on my list, and partially because the films on my list could just be better.
Honorable Mentions:
Enter the Void. Also the winner of the most batsh*t opening to a movie in existence.
A knowing spin on the romcom that also works as a terrific romcom, like The Princess Bride. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are great as the lovebirds, and Marc Webb weaves together an astute tapestry animation, split scenes, and time shifting to tell this fresh tale.
I run hot and cold with Wes Anderson, but after watching this charmer, I’m certain animation is what he’s best suited for: specifically stop motion animation. The intimidating voice talent helps elevate Anderson’s twee style into something, you guessed it, fantastic.
Prescient and razor sharp. Jason Reitman’s character drama hits the perfect tone in its character study of George Clooney’s man who fires people and lives out of a suitcase. Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga are also stupendous here.
Very often people will say “this movie had me crying in the first 10 minutes. None are more true than this Pixar gem, which wordlessly describes a marriage to masterful effect. Oh yeah, I guess the rest of the movie is pretty fun too.
The Book of Job in movie form. The Coen Brothers continue to make great and unexpected films, like this combo satire/parable about a Minnesota physics professor played by a never better Michael Stuhlbarg.
Taking the Blair Witch playbook and running with it, this movie brilliantly scares everyone by using its found footage to perfection. Never has staring at a still camera shot been so agonizing and terrifying to watch.
Steven Soderbergh beating the Coens with this movie is kinda funny, because this movie is in the Coen wheelhouse: a crime farce revolving around fat Matt Damon: 0014 (twice as smart as 007!). In Soderberg’s hands, this movie becomes something bigger as no one will ever showcase what bipolar disorder looks like as entertainingly as the gifted filmmaker.
I remember thinking with my college buds that you could make a great movie about piecing together the night before a drunken escapade. Todd Phillips and I must have had a psychic connection, because Phillips takes a hangover and turns it into the comedy mystery every bachelor party wishes they thought of first.
Quentin Tarantino’s best film since Pulp Fiction. His take on the war film contains that awesome dialogue he’s known for, a breakout performance from Christoph Waltz, and scenes that tonally drift all over the place, but totally fit.
Avatar got all the technical praise, partially because of its insane budget. This movie, made on the cheap, looks almost as good as that film, but unlike Avatar, contains a script that makes the horrors of Apartheid South Africa all too real to mainstream audiences…but with aliens.
