1.) Babel - An amazing achivement that stood out more than any other movie this year. Director/producer Alejandro Gonzales-Inarritu weaves perfectly four stories on three continents, in six languages(including sign language), to show us an inconvenient truth about our civilization - admit the growing leaps and bounds of communication, we are still at a failure to listen to our fellow human beings because of barriers ranging from cultural to racial to emotional. Now that terrorism has re-entered into the mix and has become a global concern after 9/11, it is more important than ever to listen. 2.) United 93 - Quite simply filmmaking's finest hour. Paul Greengrass honors the sacrifice of the 37 passengers aboard United Flight 93 by taking out the blame and the uber-glorification and filming the morning of the 9/11 attacks, the decisions made by the air traffic controllers in New York, the confusion and unpredictability of the military, and the harrowing 90 minutes on-board flight 93 and their decision to fight back, in real time - basically, we only know what the military, the air traffic controllers, and the passengers knew. There's no pointing fingers. No brand of Hollywood bullshit. Yes, it gut-wrenching. And yes, it's a tough pill to swallow. But it's a film that will shake and move you.
3.)Little Miss Sunshine - On the surface, this bittersweet & dark indie comedy looks like any other familiar family dramedy: a completely dysfunctional family heads out onto the open road, bound to run into obstacles ranging from the tragic to the slapstick, but barley hanging on out of love for their youngest sibling. That family is the Hoovers, that road trip is to California, the obstacles are a broken transmission on the yellow VW bus, having them to push the damn vehicle every time they stop, the tragedy is the death of a family member, and the sibling holding them together is Olive, played with great heart from 9 year-old Abigail Breslin. It would all be so formulaic if it weren't for the brilliantly funny and moving screenplay from Michael Arndt that deals with America's obsession of winning & beauty pageants.
4. Dreamgirls - My only bitch with an otherwise dazzling love letter to Detroit's Motown scene and a lost era of American music, is that Beyonce's part as Deena, the lead singer of the Dreamgirls........how should I put this.......falls flat. But when you're enjoying most entertaining musical since Chicago, you tend to forget the little things. And especially when you have some unforgettable musical numbers, great performances by Jamie Foxx as Curtis, the hustling car-salesman-tuned manager of the Dreamgirls, selling out the soul of Motown and the identity to make it on the pop charts and lay at white clubs and Eddie Murphy in his best performance as Jimmy "Thunder" Early, a womanizing soul singer who gets sucked in with the Dreams and watches as his success becomes a nightmare of drug use and soul-less pop shit, and American Idol reject Jennifer Hudson stealing the show and breaking your heart as Effie, one of members of the Dreams. She damn-near brings down the multiplex with "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going". I challenge anyone not to watch that scene and A.) not be in awe of Hudson's singing and B.) not applaud her solo in the theater.
5. Happy Feet - Or how Warner Bros.'s animated spectacle of Mumble, the only penguin from Emperor Land who doesn't have a Heart Song, is banished from his own home, meets up with Latino penguins(don't ask) & a so-called 'guru' penguin, and saves his kind from starvation by appealing to the humans' better nature through his tap dancing, makes Pixar's "Cars" look like a fucking joke. Not only is this the best animated movie of the year(thanks to great comedic work from Robin Williams and beautiful and breathtaking detail of Antarctica), it's a cartoon that has something to say.
6. The Departed - Martin Scorsese's filmmaking is like fine wine: it ages over the years and it still tastes so fucking good. His latest crime drama shows him at the top of his form with his Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon at their best as State Policemen for the city of Boston, one who's acting as a rat for the police to bring notorious mobster Frank Costello down, the other, the other acting as Costello's spy. Both are in too deep trying to complete their own motives. Jack Nickelson is electrifying as Costello, the ruthless thug escaping the police and trying to silence one of his boy's who's acting as a rat for the police. But at the heart or Scorsese's picture is a tale of betrayal, how corruption eats takes hold a person and eats at that person's soul overtime, and the people caught in the middle who are so in deep that they can't tell up from down.
7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Sure, the screenplay is unpredictable and silly. But when you have Johnny Depp stealing the show, once again, as Capt. Jack Sparrow on another misadventure, this time trying to save his skin from having to repay a blood debt to Davy Jones by finding the Dead Man's Chest, kick-ass action sequences, great visuals, Keria Knightley and Orlando Blood reviving their roles as Mr. and Mrs. Eye Candy, and mostly having the best time at the movies this year, what's there to bitch about?
8. Apocalypto - Say what you will about Mel Gibson, but he knows how to make a breathtaking epic. And he does so here, with his story on the final days of the Mayan Empire, and one man's struggle to save his family after his village was destroyed by the Mayans. Gibson's drama not only includes the most exciting and heart-pounding chase sequence this year, it also parallels how we abuse and destroy our environment and send kids to Iraq as collateral damage as a means to end terrorism.
9. Borat - To say that Sasha Baron Coens' role as a journalist from Kazakhstan is a work of comic brilliance, isn't doing the performance justice. Coens' character is a masterwork that will join the ranks of Cartman, Andy Kauvman, Dr. Strangelove, Austin Powers and others as some of the great comic works of out time. Borat is both a drop-dead, gut-bursting, laugh-till-it-hurts comedy/mockumentary and a sad, scary look into the heart of ignorant, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, foreign-hatin' , gun-lovin', Red state America.
10. An Inconvenient Truth - The documentary that can scare the living hell out of you, and still carry a PG rating. This a wake-up call to everyone, regardless of political identity, to start taking care of our planet before it literally goes under. Al Gore and filmmanker Davis Guggenheim offers up insight on global warming, the consequences of having out heads firmly up our asses and ignoring the signs, some nice humerous moment to liven up the scary, and give hope with tips to counter global warming.
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