My Favorite Movies

Woody Allen's wickedly funny masterpiece is as self-effacing - strike that; ego-obliterating - as they come. Allen stars as Harry Block, an aptly named and once moderately famous writer who now sits boozing in his Manhattan apartment, shifting the events and people of his life around under a microscope to see what "thinly-veiled" version of reality he can conjur up next for his "fiction;" a disgruntled ex refers to his "alchemy" and to him as "some f---in black magician." His problem is that he can't write. His life is a shambles: he has had multiple wives (including Kirstie Alley as a therapist who works out of their cramped apartment and Amy Irving as the cuckolded woman whose sister Harry woos into bed), a penchant for hookers, and far too many neuroses to mention. The plot, as it were, kicks in when Harry is told he's to be honored by his old alma-mater, who once expelled him, but his plans to attend are thwarted at every turn - he has nobody really to share the honor with, save for a young son (Eric Lloyd) who he kidnaps, an old friend who is poorly (Bob Balaban) and a kind, wisecracking black hooker named Cookie Williams (Hazelle Goodman). The road will be paved with many detours and visions, bittersweet memories and hilariously harsh confrontations; in this, Allen borrows somewhat from his idol Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" (1957), which also featured an intellectual on his way to be honored and reflecting on his life. Woody Allen, who also wrote and directed, has crafted a wildly profane (you've never heard this much cursing; not even in "Bullets Over Broadway" or "Mighty Aphrodite"), sometimes dizzyingly kaleidoscopic vision of a self-loathing, narcissistic, sexist, vile sewer of a human being; just about everyone has a doppelganger. The film's style is to intercut snippets of Harry's many ill-fated relationships - including the affair he had with Irving's sister (a fantastic Judy Davis), now a gun-toting victim of heartbreak, and the sweet young student (Elisabeth Shue in reality, Jennifer Garner in fiction) who in turn broke Harry's heart - with bits from his various short stories and novels, as well as some of the moments from "reality" which inspired him in the first place. His fictions include everything from an "auto-biographical" thing about himself when he was young, married, sex-obsessed (portrayed by Tobey Maguire) and has an encounter that can best be described as ill-fated, to an actor (Robin Williams) who is out of focus and forces the world around him (including wife Julie Kavner and his kids and co-workers) to adjust to his "disability," as well as a not-so-subtle portrait of the destruction of his marriage to a "devout Jewish" therapist (he is Stanley Tucci, she is Demi Moore), and a mean-spirited, enraging slice of his affair with his sister-in-law (in fiction, she's Julia Louis-Dreyfus and he's "Mermaids" director Richard Benjamin). Allen throws in the kitchen sink, and then the whole kitchen: he even finds time for a brutally honest (and hilarious) excursion to the home of his ultra-Jewish half-sister (Caroline Aaron) and her zealot husband (Eric Bogosian), a darkly hilarious jab at his parents that features a Star Wars-themed bar mitzvah, the tale of an axe murderer and cannibalism, and that's even before an astonishingly designed sojurn into Hell to ask the Devil (Billy Crystal, who is also Harry's successful former best friend Larry) to give him back his young girlfriend (Shue). Because, as he finds, he cannot function in life but only in art, it is the excerpts from his work that are smooth and film-like, while the moments of reality are often fragmented, jump-cutting and full of slightly off-framed shots. Occasionally, Allen will begin a sentence, cut to another angle in the middle of another thought, and then back again to join the previous thought already in further progress. Sometimes, the film begins a camera move only to double back and start over; this reflects the fragmented nature of Harry's thought process. The results are sometimes a bit confusing at first, ambitious and admirably full of candor, and always hilarious. One of Allen's very best films!

NOTE: That catchy song over the beginning and ending credits is "Twisted" by Annie Ross of "Short Cuts"-fame. The original screenplay was deservedly nominated for an Oscar.

PG-13, 100 min, 2004

Writer-director Pedro Almodovar, he of the resurrection of Spanish cinema, spins a slight but brilliant tale of a young mother (Penelope Cruz, in her best performance since Almodovar?s All About My Mother in 1999!) in La Mancha whose husband is killed (no spoilers here), who must dispose of his body (and scandal) and who must go about her life. Meanwhile, her mother (Carmen Maura) returns (seemingly) from the dead to help guide her family back toward repair. Bittersweet, warm and oddly funny, this is a gorgeously devour-able confection well worth seeking out.

Robert Altman's film (which turned out to be his last) is a lively entertainment, a sweet ode to the simple pleasures to be had listening to the radio, and a lovely film about (appropriately) death. Altman employs a typically large ensemble cast for ostensibly the last broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion," a St. Paul, Minnesota-based radio variety show, "the kind that died 50 years ago." Not particularly upset about the fact he's soon to be out of a job, the leader of this ragtag group is GK (Garrison Keillor), the narrator and head writer of the show. He is joined on stage by the Johnson Girls, Rhonda (Lily Tomlin from "Nashville") and Yolanda (Meryl Streep), and Yolanda brings along her talented misfit teenage daughter Lola (a stellar Lindsay Lohan). There's also the trail-hands Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly), whose specialty includes the uproarious musical tribut to ribald humor, "Bad Jokes." In typical Altman fashion, we also get a glimpse behind the scenes of the last show, with an anxiety-ridden stage manager named Molly ("Saturday Night Live" alum Maya Rudolph), who is several months pregnant (Rudolph's baby's actual father is stand-by director Paul Thomas Anderson, who was heavily influenced by Altman). Then, in the center of it all, is Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), a bumbling private-eye type who runs security for the program and has his eyes on all the variables that could make this night memorable in the worst possible ways. Seems the company was bought by a Texas conglomerate and they've sent their "axeman" (a humorless Tommy Lee Jones) to shut the whole thing down. Can the mysterious, white-trenchcoated "Dangerous Woman," (Virginia Madsen), an apparent angel, save them? Altman's film has a modest 105-minute running time and I wanted it to go on forever. The comedy is warm and teasing, the cast is delightful, and the soundtrack is filled with wall-to-wall music of the sort that Midwestern types love - songs which reflect a spirit, and arguably a sense of spirituality, which even the most hardened cynic can't resist. From Keillor's early solo "Slow Days of Summer" to Streep and Tomlin's showstopper "My Minnesota Home," from "Gold Watch and Chain," to the cast's big finale of "Red River Valley," this film is loaded with wonderful music. I dare you not to tear up and get a shiver down your spine as Chuck (L.Q. Jones), a sick old performer, takes to the stage to sing "You Have Been a Friend to Me," and towards the end appears to be gasping for air mid-lyric, eyes red, face pale, and just the slightest hint of tears forming. Robert Altman was 81 when he died in November 2006, having finally won an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement earlier that year and having completed this wonderfully fitting final work (he had two more films in pre-production at the time). He had a way of making his film sets like a party, and he loved actors, inviting them to bring what they could to make the party more festive. His camera (manned here by Ed Lachmann) was always moving, roving around to see whatever could be seen; it never appeared planned. He made judicious use of the zoom lense; he often liked to peek into the cracks and crevices behind the main action to see and show what most directors wouldn't bother with. The backgrounds of his films were never empty; he was as interested in the "side-stories" as he was in the "main plot." Yet his films never had a plot, per say; they were open to the many possibilities of everyday life. He gathered his massive casts for wonderful works, first garnering attention and acclaim with "MASH" (1970) and "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" (1971), and continued his style, developing a special sound system for recording his actors, which came in handy on such masterpieces as "Nashville" (1975), "The Player" (1992), "Short Cuts" (1993), and "Gosford Park" (2001) among many others. These were the work of a true artist, and he remains sorely missed.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's debut film is an astonishingly assured work: a spare character study, an insider's look at the world of semi-professional gambling, and an ode to the search for redemption. Philip Baker Hall gives a flat-out masterful (if low-key) performance as Sydney, a brilliant gambler on the outskirts of Reno. Sydney comes upon a lone, scruffy sad sack named John (John C. Reilly) outside of a diner and invites him in for a cigarette and a cup of coffee. John tells Sydney his tale of woe - he lost a lot of money in Vegas and needs it to pay for a family funeral. Sydney doesn't have the money to lend, but will teach John the ropes of gambling and how to beat the casinos good enough to get a free room and a meal. Flash-forward two years to Reno, and John has befriended Sydney's troublesome associate Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson) and is falling for a cocktail waitress and part-time hooker named Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow). And so the circle is complete. There turns out to be a sort of a plot, but I wouldn't dare dream of giving away any more. I will say that Anderson's first film demonstrates an astonishing knowledge of his characters, a great ear for dialogue, and an assured visual sense. The cinematography by Robert Elswit paints a Reno of neon-lit nights and cold, lonely interiors. He dispatches a few Steadicams for glorious extended takes simply to watch great actors walking, and the effect is marvelous. Philip Baker Hall, an overlooked and underappreciated character actor best known for his role as Bookman the library cop on "Seinfeld," here demonstrates a range and prowess he hasn't been allowed to show since his great solo performance as Richard Nixon in Robert Altman's "Secret Honor" (1984). Here again, Hall gets deep inside the skin of a character, showing us his strengths and weaknesses, his fears and desires, making a cool, professional, button-down type utterly real and heartbreakingly human. Reilly and Paltrow are the young couple in love (or something like it), who look to Sydney for guidance in a moment of crisis, and get more than just a father figure, but a real friend. And lurking all the time, coiling around them like a snake, is the fearsome Jimmy. Samuel L. Jackson, appearing to channel some of the more theatrical moments of his Jules in Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction," makes him a cool professional as well, knowing how to handle difficult situations, but not always as calm and restrained as Sydney. These characters collide in what amounts to a powder keg and Anderson handles everything with a deft touch. He's a real filmmaker, and this proves he was all along. Keep an eye out for Philip Seymour Hoffman in an early role as a loud-mouth at the casino taunting Sydney. NOTE: Paul Thomas Anderson has since gone on to be one of my very favorite filmmakers and biggest influences, writing and directing the 70s behind-the-porn epic "Boogie Nights" (1997), the dark romantic comedy "Punch-Drunk Love" (2002), the epic tale of misanthropy and greed "There Will Be Blood" (2007), and one of my very favorite films of all time, the ensemble epic of loneliness and chance "Magnolia" (1999).

Paul Thomas Anderson's much-anticipated epic is the quintessentially American masterwork we've been waiting for for a long time. It is a combination horror film, black comedy and epic portrait of two characters so consumed by greed, vindictiveness, misanthropy and evil that they are mesmerizing even as they repulse.



Daniel Day-Lewis is Daniel Plainview, the silver miner in 1898 New Mexico (at the outset) who eventually makes his way to California to be a self-proclaimed "oil man." Once there, he meets first Paul and then identical twin (? - or are they one in the same?) Eli Sunday (BOTH played by Paul Dano of "Little Miss Sunshine" and "L.I.E."), the former telling Daniel of the family's goat farm in the middle of nowhere, and the latter being a zealous, Evangelical faith healer whose Church of the Third Revelation is his sole passion.



Plainview is a horrific monster movie villain in the best sense of the word: he runs roughshod over everyone and everything, destroying all in his path. Dano is meek, small and humbly innocent-seeming by contrast, making him just as dangerous, if not more so (Plainview sees this clearly from the outset).



Plainview is a user of "these people" around him (including an adopted son who he attains as a very young business partner in the aftermath of the boy's biological father's violent death via misadventure). The scenes between Daniel and his son H.W. (played by newcomer Dillon Freasier) have an almost warm, heartfelt tone that is missing from EVERY SINGLE OTHER CONTACT that Plainview has with humanity. What Plainview does to H.W. is, ultimately, the beginning of the end for him and the film (though it may also be the ONE SOURCE of regret and repentance in his soul).



Plainview is a misanthropic loner who would probably live on the moon were it possible in the early 20th Century to do so (1898-1927 is the span of the picture). He has a magnificent mini-monologue about his "hatreds being built up over the years" that brings down the house!



Then there's the ending, about which the less said the better. I will simply say this: for those who read the screenplay, the on-the-nose nature of the final showdown between Daniel and Eli is missing here, but the twisted humor is still in tact!



Day-Lewis chews the scenery with relish, and Dano matches him almost measure for measure. This is definitely Day-Lewis' film though, as his portrait of a villain is the most horrific and weirdly lovable since...well, since he was Bill the Butcher in Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" (2002).



Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has employed his usual crack team of collaborators, including longtime editor Dylan Tichenor, who lends the film a nice (appropriately) deliberate pace; Robert Elswit, whose camera snakes its way through the rough & tumble post-Old West landscape of New Mexico and California with great aplomb; and Radiohead musician Jonny Greenwood's original score, which is by turns warm and lush, cold and violent, underlies the whole enterprise with unspoken tension even in the most mundane scenes!



Much comparison has been made to "Citizen Kane" and "Giant" and those may be apt milemarkers for Anderson's achievement, but I was oddly reminded of Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" (1975). The story of a similarly misanthropic (or, at least, uncaring) young man who rose through the ranks to become a wealthy and powerful man who was, ultimately alone, it's a story often told, and just as well now as it was back then (the final credits music by Brahms doesn't hurt the feeling of similarity).



A film like this, though not Anderson's best work, is still a GREAT film and well worth seeking out. Much awards attention has already been bestowed upon the remarkable work done herein, and it is all well-deserved. This is almost the best film of 2007! Nominated for 8 Oscars including Best Picture, a tie with my #5 pick!

Kenneth Branagh's "Sleuth" is a two character study by way of Harold Pinter, who took the basic plot of Anthony Shaffer's play (previously adapted into a 1972 film by Joseph L. Mankiewicz) and didn't even bother to look at the original dialogue it seems.

The result is a fascinating, mind-boggling, cat and mouse game that truly keeps you guessing and riveted from moment to moment.

Terrifically written by Pinter with crackling dialogue ("You gave him a metaphorical pat on the bum?") and brilliant, over-the-top acting by Jude Law and Michael Caine (Law is playing the part Caine played in the original film and Caine now plays the role immortalized by Laurence Olivier), this is a real sleeper! Great film!

Just about the best film in 2007 is writer-director Craig Brewer's sophomore effort following his 2005 debut, "Hustle & Flow." Starring Samuel L. Jackson as a blues musician who has lost his faith in the lord, as well as his marriage, Brewer's film sets up quite the improbable connection when Jackson finds the town slut (Christina Ricci) beaten and raped on the side of the road. Nursing her back to health, Jackson tells her she's been "put in his path" so he can cure her of her "wickedness." What follows is one of the most bizarrely touching and beautiful romances you're ever likely to see!

Tim Burton's zany comedic biopic is a great film - about (arguably) the worst filmmaker that ever lived. Johnny Depp stars as Edward D. Wood, Jr., a naive aspiring director whose latest stage production has gained a bad review in which only the costumes were given a modicum of praise. One day, he hears about a Z-grade production house making a thinly-veiled true story about a man that changed his sex. Wood comes back with his first "hit" screenplay - "Glen or Glenda?," and directs himself in the starring role (Wood had a penchant for dressing in womens' clothing). This is much to the chagrin of his aspiring ingenue girlfriend Dolores Fuller (Sarah Jessica Parker), whose about had it with Wood and his growing circle of misfits, perverts (including a low-key brilliant Bill Murray as transsexual-in-the-making Bunny Breckinridge) and freaks (his ensemble cast would soon include Vampira and Tor Johnson, the Swedish wrestler played here by Lisa Marie and George "The Animal" Steele, respectively). Fate soon connects Wood with childhood icon-turned-morphine addict Bela Lugosi (a magnificent, Oscar-winning Martin Landau) and his career is set - the film covers much of the production of films such as "Bride of the Atom" (which became "Bride of the Monster") and "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (funded by the Baptist Church as a fundraiser for their films about the 12 Apostles, it was originally went by a more "offensive title" of "Graverobbers from Outer Space"!). Burton's film, stunningly photographed in stark black and white, is a throwback to the time of Z-grade horror and science-fiction films, and the results are magical. Depp gets deep into the skin of the superficial cineaste Wood, whose aspirations to be an auteur ironically hit a fever pitch when bad director met great director in an inspirational bar conversation with Orson Welles (an uncanny Vincent D'Onofrio). The acceptance Wood never found professionally was even made up for when he met a girl who loved him for him (Patricia Arquette). This is perhaps one of the oddest, funniest and (in its way) weirdly inspiring films about show business ever made. It's also one of the best.

Guillaume Canet's thriller is a labyrinthine but rivetingly perplexing web into which the audience is pulled and never let go. Alex Beck (Francois Cluzet) and Margot (Marie-Josee Croze) were childhood sweethearts. Now married and living in France, they go away for a quiet weekend at a cabin in the middle of nowhere and are skinny-dipping one night when Margot goes to let the dog out of the house. She never returns and before long Alex is knocked unconcious into the water. Eight years later, Alex is a pediatrician in a Paris hopsital with a tenuous relationship to his sister Anne (Marina Hands) but gets along pretty well with her wife Helene (the British Kristin Scott Thomas, speaking perfect French). One day, Alex receives an anonymous e-mail with a link to a real-time video of a crowded corner of the city - and his wife standing there in the middle of it. Soon, Alex is out to find his wife, who appears to be very much alive, and yet must do so on the run from the police, who through an elaborate frame-up job have come to suspect him in a series of other murders by a mysterious cadre of hired thugs who appear to have been responsible for the apparent murder and disappearance of Margot eight years earlier. There is more - much more in fact, including a mid-level crook whose kid Alex once treated; a high-speed foot chase through the crowded streets of Paris, across an expressway and through the Clignancourt antiques marketplace; the discovery of a shotgun used in another murder that is tied directly to Alex; a strategic tip-off by Alex's lawyer (Nathalie Baye); the mysterious motives of Margot's father (Andre Dussolier), an aging detective; the horse races enjoyed by a Senator (Jean Rochefort) and the questionable actions of his son (played by Canet himself). The film, co-written and directed by Guillaume Canet, is adapted from a novel by Harlan Coben. The film is all style and plot, but is utterly fascinating in its application of one of Hitchcock's old standbys: the Innocent Man Wrongly Accused. As Alex (Cluzet) runs, we feel like we're running with him, racing against time to discover the truth and prove himself innocent of multiple murders. This is one of the best thrillers of recent years.

John Carney's film is winsome yet sometimes profane, heartwarming yet bittersweet; the tiny Irish musical that could. The "plot" is simplicity itself: The "Guy" (Glen Hansard of the Frames) meets the "Girl" (Czech immigrant Marketa Irglova) and they make beautiful music together. But the Devil's in the details: The "Guy" (Hansard), who alternates his time between working in his father's vacuum repair shop and singing for pennies on the street with his knowledge of "established songs," as well as his trusty guitar to guide his original efforts, is a heartbroken Irish troubadour on the streets of Dublin. The "Girl", a young beauty who has more than one surprise up her sleeve, quickly takes to the sad "old man" who is enchanted by her as well. They decide to at least have a musical relationship, collaborating on some songs; she plays piano, sings background and writes a few lovely lyrics and he bangs out a mean guitar string. But is it meant to be? Writer-director John Carney doesn't interfere with fancy camerawork or even the typical jittery nature of digital video - despite a heart-stoppingly accelerated shooting schedule and an excruciatingly shoe-string budget. Hansard and Irglova are something approaching magical as two ordinary people in an ordinary world with extraordinary gifts who find each other. The music these two make together is adorable, catchy, and memorable. The results are an utterly lovely experience you won't soon forget.



NOTE: Winner of the 2007 Oscar for Best Song ("Falling Slowly").

The Coen Brothers' suspenseful, absorbing Western-tinged noir follows Cormac McCarthy's blood-drenched 2005 novel to the letter, and it results in one of the most wickedly entertaining and bone-chilling crime films to come out of America in the last 50 years or more. Javier Bardem is Chigurh, the disturbing and disturbed, cold, calculating murderer who dispatches some business associates quite violently when a drug deal goes awry. Happening upon the scene, sans Chigurh, is rancher Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin in one of four great films this year!), who finds a stash of heroin and $2 million in cash. Of course, Moss takes the money and Chigurh is then hot on his tail. Tommy Lee Jones, appearing in another wonderful law-enforcement role this year, plays Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, the small Texas-Mexico border town's local lawman who finds the scene and then pursues Chigurh in an effort to save Moss. But as a character says late in the film, "You can't stop what's coming." Twisted and heart-stopping, gruesomely violent and wickedly funny by turns, this is as brilliant a film as the Coens ("Fargo," "Blood Simple") have ever made - in any milieu! Nominated for 8 Oscars including Best Picture!

Richard Eyre's riveting, saucy psychodrama is a taut, suspenseful, deeply involving thriller in which words are used as weapons rather than brute force, in which deceit and blackmail pass for friendship, and in which two women become inextribably entwined in a dangerous scandal. Judi Dench stars as Barbara Covett, the draconian history teacher at a private school in modern London. Barbara is sharp-witted, misanthropic and bitter, and keeps a journal in which she spews venom behind the backs of everyone she works with. Then one day, Barbara meets a new "friend." This would be Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), the fetching and sweet young art teacher who has found her way to this school. At work, she quickly attracts the affections of a geekish older teacher (Phil Davis), while at home, she is forced to attempt to balance her marriage to another older man (Bill Nighy) and her children (a teenage girl and a pre-teen with Down's Syndrome). What Sheba will soon discover is that she has found her way not just into a new job or new romantic prospects, but deep into the web of the vampire Barbara as well. When Barbara goes looking for Sheba one night during a school assembly, she stumbles upon a most disturbing sight: Sheba going down on one of her young male students (Andrew Simpson). Barbara sees this as an opportunity, however, she doesn't want money. She wants to seduce Sheba into being first friends, then confidantes, and eventually, blackmailing poor Sheba into oblivion. Her blackmail is verbal, emotional and psychological. Sheba would do anything to keep her secret from coming out, and is willing to go along with Barbara knowing, seeing her as, in a way, her best friend, with Barbara the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing and Sheba a lamb to the slaughter. The film, directed by Richard Eyre ("Iris," "Stage Beauty"), was adapted from the novel by Zoe Heller. The screenplay by Patrick Marber ("Closer") is full-to-brimming with ink-black wit, devilish treachery, and fascinating psychological gamesmanship. The omnipresent musical score by Philip Glass ("The Fog of War" among others) is by turns operatic and insistent, overly dramatizing what is, after all, most likely a fairly local or, at most, potentially nation-wide scandal. Blanchett and Dench deliver terrific performances, one-upping each other at every turn. Dench is the real surprise, however, as the wrinkled-old-prune-cum-newly-revitalized-succubus. Her attraction to Sheba is growing palpable even before she catches her "in the act;" her illusions shattered, you could almost look at her post-incident reactions as a sort of sapphic "Madonna/Whore" complex (you'll recall from "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver" the idea that a man sees virtue and honor in a woman, typically an icy blonde, before seeing her in a whole new and altogether more ugly light). These two get into the skins of these characters, and draw blood. This is one of the most wretchedly delightful films of the year.



NOTE: Nominated for 4 Oscars: Actress, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, and Original Score!

Stephen Fry's masterful adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's brilliant 1930 novel is a surprisingly (if appropriately) thoughtful take on the lives of gossipy, frollicking twentysomethings in London on the precipice of World War II. Stephen Campbell Moore is Adam Symes, an aspiring writer whose latest manuscript is confiscated by Customs ("gotta keep filth outta the country") upon his return to England. There, he and his circle of friends and associates: Miles, a homosexual; Agatha, a bird-brained "hottentott"; and Nina, his fiancee, spend all night every night indulging in excess at every single available party. Scandalous behavior rocks the local papers, owned by Adam's expectant publisher Lord Monomark (Dan Aykroyd); now that Adam's out a book, he owes for the advance. Their world is judged on-high by an Evangelical missionary named Melrose Ape (Stockard Channing), whose choir's rendition of "Ain't No Flies on the Lamb of God" has to be heard to be believed, and when they aren't dodging charges of moral indeceny, they're attempting to avoid the rabid nature of the paparazzi, represented by the semi-tragic Lord Simon Balcairn (James McAvoy). The heart of the story, if that's the word, is in the on-again/off-again romance and engagement of Adam and Nina, whose fortunes literally govern their ability to get married; it's hilarious seeing Adam attempt a cohesive conversation with Nina's senile colonel father (Peter O'Toole), as well as the shenanigans of a mysterious drunk Major (Jim Broadbent), with whom he has a shady financial dealing. As the clouds of war loom overhead, these "bright young things" (who share their moniker with the title of Adam's confiscated book) are completely oblivious, living in their bubblegum world of parties, alcohol and cocaine, spinning ever faster out of control. As a first-time writer-director, comedian and actor Stephen Fry wisely takes the "it's all fun and games till somebody gets hurt" approach to Waugh's prose; the film, as a result, is deeper and wiser than we at first expect, and the ending comes as something of a stunner, even if it's inevitable. In their boozy, would-be aristocratic ways, I was reminded of Whit Stillman's "yuppie trilogy" ("Metropolitan," "Barcelona" and "The Last Days of Disco"). The cast is uniformly excellent, with Stephen Campbell Moore the perfect nebbish, Emily Mortimer as the belle of the ball who seeks love in all the wrong places, Michael Sheen as a shamelessly flaming queen whose mother is pummeled by the implications in the press, and Fenella Woolgar as the tragic Agatha, so funny, so blissfully clueless, and so heartbreakingly oblivious to the writings of doom on the wall. With cinematographer Henry Braham, Fry has found an astonishingly assured style for his first effort: stately and gorgeous in the dramatic scenes, hyperkinetic and wild in the early party days. The results are amusing, bittersweet and ultimately moving. One of 2004's very best films!

Writer-director David Gordon Green's second feaure film is another poetic, lovely, thoughtful take on small-town North Carolina life to rival his terrific debut, "George Washington" (2000). Paul Schneider (who co-conceived the story with Green) plays Paul, a lothario who sleeps with all the girls in town and then dumps them quickly and not particularly tactfully ("I think I hate you too"). He hangs out with friends Tip and Bust-Ass (Danny McBride), and occasionally helps his mom (Patricia Clarkson) as a clown for hire at the local children's hospital. When his best friend's sister (the lovely Zooey Deschanel) comes back to town from boarding school, Paul is faced with his first real prospect for love. But will she just be another conquest, or will they succeed where previous relationships have failed? Green has a great eye for visual splendor, and an equal ear for dialogue which sounds plausible in a sort of heightened reality; these people talk not like you or me, but how we might wish we could talk. Deschanel is luminescent and fragile as a sweet young girl for whom Paul his her first lover, and for whom the ultimate dream is to find someone nice, trust-worthy and decent. Paul tries to fit the bill, but nobody's perfect. The film is a bittersweet tone poem for North Carolina, for young love, and for the heartbreak that often ensues. An absolute gem.

David Gordon Green's "Snow Angels" is a mosaical slice of life in a small town (filmed in Nova Scotia). It concerns the converging lives of everyone from a young dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant (Michael Angarano) to his sexy coworker (Kate Beckinsale), a mom in the midst of a separation from her deadbeat, suicidal husband (Sam Rockwell), the dishwasher's classmate (Olivia Thirlby), and the co-worker (Amy Sedaris) and her unfaithful husband (Nicky Katt).

Green's fourth feature (after the superb "George Washington," "All the Real Girls" and "Undertow"; he has Judd Apatow's production "The Pineapple Express" coming in August!) is a powerful little movie based on the Stuart O'Nan novel.

The only confusing thing is that it seems to be set in the 70s or 80s, yet Beckinsale has a very new looking cellphone at one point. Anachronism?

Very good work on all accounts.

John Hillcoat?s Australian western starred Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential, Memento) as one third of a troublesome fraternal gang in the 1800?s Outback, Ray Winstone as the police captain who has sworn to ?civilize this land? and Danny Huston (in a mesmerizingly frightening turn) as Arthur Burns, the brains of the clan who has escaped justice and whom Winstone orders Pearce to turn in in order to save his youngest brother from execution before Christmas Day. Emily Watson also shows up as the distressed wife of Winstone?s law enforcement official. This is a brutal, bloody, occasionally sardonically humorous but ultimately pitiless masterwork of period criminology. A morality play, a character study, a mood piece and a beautifully filmed action epic on a small scale, Nick Cave?s first screenplay (he was lead singer of The Bad Seeds; he also wrote the music) is no less than ingenious!

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu?s final film in a trilogy started with 2001?s Amores Perros and continued with 2003?s 21 Grams is a remarkable amalgamation of the cinematic, storytelling and acting qualities that the young budding auteur has accrued throughout his short career. The film, like its predecessors, tells multiple stories, this time crossing continents to intertwine the tales of an American couple on tourist holiday in Morocco, their Mexican nanny who is forced to take their kids with her to her son?s wedding after a horrible accident forces them to stay overseas, a couple of Berber sons experimenting with a shotgun who are responsible for said accident, and finally a deaf teenage girl who is the daughter of the Japanese businessman who gave the gun as a gift to the boys? father, and who is experimenting haphazzardly with sex. These four powder-kegs collide in what amounts to an explosive, thought-provoking, empathetic and, ultimately, heartbreakingly hopeful portrait of contemporary life and the need for cross-cultural communication (to say nothing of proper communication between relations). With an astonishing ensemble cast, including Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, Adriana Barrazza, Michael Pena, Clifton Collins Jr., this is an unforgettable film. At the film?s emotional center is the most stunningly, physically and emotionally daring performance of this year and possibly the decade: young Rinko Kikuchi as Chieko, the psychologically damaged and vulnerable daughter of the Japanese businessman, who must face mourning the death of her mother with dire consequences for herself and, potentially, anyone around her. This is magnificent, international, independent filmmaking at its height!

Patty Jenkins' film is a deeply disturbing, hypnotically fascinating, and utterly absorbing experience. Aileen Wuornos was one of the first female serial killers in America. Abused and into drugs as a child, Aileen was a starry-eyed dreamer who thought she could've been an actress like Marilyn Monroe, but was not going to be "discovered" as a thirteen-year old prostitute. In Florida, Aileen began hitchhiking on the highways, servicing truck drivers and loners in cars. Aileen had one friend - a Vietnam vet and fellow drunk named Thomas (Bruce Dern), who pities her when she can't pay her storage garage's rent and never asks for her "services" in return. Then, between 1989 and 1990, Aileen met a sweet, young Christian-raised lesbian named Selby Wall (Christina Ricci), who was in the area from Ohio after her father sent her to live with family and "figure some things out." Aileen fell in love with Selby, not at first sight per say, but gradually over a few days. Soon, Aileen was trying to keep Selby from leaving her, and needed to gain money. Attempts at quitting prostitution failed, and one night she was raped. She murdered the man in what looks an awful lot like self-defense. The six murders which occurred after that were an unfortunate side effect of her terrible childhood and treatment at the hands of the men in her life (with the exception of Thomas), and stemmed largely from a need for money to keep Selby accustomed to her chosen lifestyle. Writer-director Patty Jenkins has crafted an unflinching portrait of a serial killer, absorbing in its detail and profoundly moving in its humanity. Charlize Theron stars as Aileen Wuornos, but it isn't a performance so much as a transformation; she's channeling demons here, not simply "acting." With her wild eyes, her low Southern drawl, and her profound weight gain - alongside the remarkable makeup effects of Toni G. - Theron becomes Aileen. Christina Ricci is essentially the sweet young innocent who falls into Aileen's web. Theron, however, is the star of the show. We see that she is deeply in love with Selby, that she is good-humored and we even meet her at her lowest point - she was about to kill herself before walking into a bar and first meeting her lady love. She is not without a scintilla of compassion; she lets a seemingly mentally challenged man (Pruitt Taylor Vince, all dodgy eyes and stutters) go after her streak of killing's begun. Then things go from bad to worse, when fate catches up with her. One night, on a dark highway, she is picked up by a Good Samaritan (Scott Wilson) who simply wants to help her out. When she realizes she can't kill him, she is getting out of the car and he sees something he wasn't supposed to see. His fate is sealed. "God forgive me," she says. This is a portrait of a shattered person, someone who never stood a chance. Circumstances drove her to prostitution, and circumstances again drove her to kill - first in self-defense, then for money. It's all in the details. What Jenkins and Theron have provided then is a profound exercise in empathy; we can just about feel Wuornos' pain. It's one of the year's best films.

NOTE: Theron of course won the Oscar for Best Actress.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's whimsical, gorgeously stylish ode to the lonelyhearted, the selflessly kind, and the lovelorn is just about the most pleasant experience anyone could ever hope to have watching a movie. Amelie Poulain is born to a school teacher with shattered nerves and a physician who never touches her; when he gives her a physical examination and her heart beats like a drum at the rare bit of contact, he deduces she has a heart defect. With no friends and an unfortunate pet goldfish, Amelie is forced to take refuge inside her imagination, taking pictures of bunny and teddy bear-shaped clouds with an Instamatic camera, and giving physical examinations to invisible animals. Flashing forward to August 1997, Audrey Tautou is the title character, a Montmartre waitress who lives alone and has a pretty unsuccessful love life (I dare you not to laugh at the look on Tautou's face during sex in an early montage). Her life changes drastically on the day Princess Diana is killed in a motor crash when pursued by paparazzi. By sheer coincidence, she uncovers a secret hole in the wall of her apartment, and discovers a hidden tin of childhood trinkets. She does some impressive investigative work and tracks down the original tenant of her apartment, returning the trinkets anonymously. When she sees how happy these symbols of memories past have made him, Amelie vows to dedicate herself to others' happiness. She plays matchmaker to a jealous stalker (Dominique Pinon) and one of her co-workers, and takes a blind man on a whirlwind tour of the neighborhood, describing the surroundings at every turn. But Amelie cannot seem to make herself happy, until a seemingly random event propels her toward meeting a stranger (Mathieu Kassovitz) who could be her one true love. This is, quite simply, one of the most purely delightful, warm, funny and just plain lovable movies ever made. Jean-Pierre Jeunet has, in the past, been possessed of a somewhat rustic vision, portraying the unique world of his films in deep browns, yellows and reds. Having previously worked with art director Mark Caro on such films as "Delicatessen" (1991) and "The City of Lost Children" (1995), Jeunet lost some of his luster with "Alien Resurrection" (1997). With this film, he is back to his remarkably visionary self. Bruno Delbonnel's camera whips and whirls and slides all over Paris, showing us every nook and cranny, dazzling us with every move. Jeunet even employs rather impressive special effects by Jean-Baptiste Bonetto and Noel Chainbaux, in order to take us further into the fantasy worlds of Amelie and Nino. Tautou is, herself, something of a special effect. The camera loves her, and she manages to create one of the most utterly adorable characters of all time; you want to hug her. This is a film about the ability to dream, the search for love, and the willingness to allow yourself to be loved. This film has no problem with that last one.

Spike Jonze's sophomore effort is as bewildering, magnificent, odd, funny and original as its predecessor. In what amounts to ultra-meta fiction, the film concerns screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicolas Cage), the Oscar-nominated and much-beloved scribe behind "Being John Malkovich" (1999), which was Jonze's feature debut. He is (in his own words) "fat, bald, sweating profusely, pathetic, ugly" and is potentially to be hired by a studio executive (Tilda Swinton) to adapt a much-acclaimed book called "The Orchid Thief," based on a New Yorker article by the book's author Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep). The book, if it's about anything at all, concerns the exploits of John Laroche (Chris Cooper), a toothless Florida swamp-rat of a man who uses his friends, all Seminole Indians, to excavate and effectively abscond with many rare species of orchid from the bogs and backwoods of the Everglades. Susan, interviewing Laroche for first an article and then a book, falls for his insane charms. Meanwhile, Charlie has a brother named Donald (also played by Cage), his much more confident, obnoxious and simple-minded id. He's gearing up for a three-day screenwriting seminar from Robert McKee (Brian Cox), the notoriously difficult teacher of all things formula. Charlie is all-but-paralyzingly nervous, attempting quite futilely to flirt with a kind waitress (Judy Greer) and his studio boss (Swinton), as well as developing a fantasy for Susan Orlean. Donald, on the other hand, is suave but a dope, gaining the adoration of a makeup artist (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who worked on "Being John Malkovich." While Charlie struggles with adapting a book into a movie "simply about flowers," Donald breezes through his own script, "The 3," a convoluted cheat of an exploitation thriller about a serial killer who has multiple personalities - he is also his own victim, as well as the detective who is hunting him and falling for the victim from her photos. Charlie, meanwhile, likewise falls for Susan without even meeting her - until he decides he must. So you see, 'round and 'round it goes. The metaphor of an "ouroborous," a snake eating its own tail, is an apt one - this film is like that, coiling around and around, then folding back on itself like a mobius strip. The plot is merely the surface, with layers upon layers underneath. The twist is that this film has been written by Charlie Kaufman (his faux brother Donald is, in fact, a credited co-author), and that makes this perhaps one of the most complicated and brilliantly honest portrayals of the process of screenwriting ever made - the story of this film is the story of the writing of the film itself, and the film itself is a record of its own writing, and so on. Cage gives a tour-de-force performance in a dual role as both Charlie and Donald, but it's not a stunt - he makes both characters destinct and real, despite their physical similarities. Streep plays Orlean as a bored New York intellectual (married to Curtis Hanson, who directed Streep in "The River Wild" before moving on to "L.A. Confidential," "Wonder Boys" and "8 Mile") who should be repulsed by Laroche, an all-but-toothless simpleton who thinks he should play himself in the movie version of his own story (Kaufman might approve), but she is instead drawn to him like a moth to a flame. Cooper plays Laroche exactly as I've previously described him, with a penchant for making internet pornography on the side ("they pay top dollar for 'em"). All of these characters and their fates weave and warp under the film's surface for most of its duration, and then Kaufman springs an audacious and, the more you think about it, brilliant surprise that ties everything together hilariously. The cinematography by Lance Acord is suitably slick but low-key, and Carter Burwell's music is there, never underlining until that's required, always observing in perfect anonymity. Jonze and Kaufman prove here that "Being John Malkovich" was no fluke and that they are talents to be reckoned with, capable of work far deeper than it at first appears.

Neil LaBute's wickedly funny, deeply twisted, woundingly honest (would-be) romantic comedy is about two monstrously selfish "couples," their deeply troubled relationships, a number of attempts at affairs, and two single characters who are no better. We are first introduced to "Cary" (Jason Patric), a doctor, one of the singles who is a misanthropic chauvinist womanizer, a terminal bachelor who delights in "wining and dining" women into his bed only to turn the tables and emotionally obliterate them; he even practices his "routine" alone in bed and while exercising, employing a tape recorder to playback and "rehearse." He is "best friends" (a relative term, since none of these characters seems to know how to treat people) with "Jerry" (Ben Stiller), a geeky actor/college theater instructor who early in the film, upon asking his class what a "provocative little scene" is all about. in lieu of an answer confesses: "What do these characters all have in common? They all want to... f---! It's always about f---ing." He is living with "Terri" (Catherine Keener), a would-be writer whose work would only be familiar to you if you "read the sides of your Tampon box." They are friends with "Barry" (Aaron Eckhart), a sweet, big dumb business-type with ginger-colored hair and a 70s-porn star mustache, and his wife "Mary" (Amy Brenneman), a sweet, prudish young writer of relationship articles. The two couples have a host of sexual and relationship issues: "Jerry" is a major "talker" in bed, much to "Terri"'s chagrin; "Barry" tries desperately to do everything to cause a spark with his wife "Mary" but is often rebuffed, which leads to compulsive masturbation, causing him to muse to a co-worker: "Nobody makes me cum the way I do." Into these people's matrix, via a recurring motif, is "Cheri" (Nastassja Kinski), a sexy young "artist's assistant" at a trendy local gallery whose interactions with most of the characters seem to consist largely of answering the same dumb questions and variations on her and their reactions. The one character she comes to know is "Terri," who begins an untoward sexual affair with her. The sapphic relationship between these two is juxtaposed with "Jerry"'s own deception: he begins an affair with "Mary," his "best friend's wife," inspired by an earlier get-together where he first noticed an attraction to her, but that goes nowhere in a fast direction. The film is the sophomore writing-directing effort from playwrite-turned-filmmaker Neil LaBute, who made his debut with the equally callous and savage "In the Company of Men" (1997). That one starred Eckhart as a deeply twisted businessman who enlists a colleague (Matt Malloy) in a cruel and vicious prank - competing for the affections of a deaf new co-worker (Stacy Edwards). Is LaBute a misogynist, a misanthrope, or simply a chronicler of the socially maladjusted? As "Terri" says at one point: "Love is a disease." In LaBute's world, it certainly is; except the characters aren't so much infected as infecting. Fittingly, the tagline for this is "a modern immorality tale." The mood is set early on by the pastel-colored paper-thin animations which populate the credits, set to Metallica's "Enter the Sandman" as performed in a lyric-less harsh-string version by Apocalyptica; this isn't bittersweet, it's just plain bitter. There are no exteriors, only interiors, so this could be any big city: New York, LA, Chicago, elsewhere. The characters are never referred to by name until the end credits because it doesn't matter what their names are; they are archetypes who relate to each other knowingly, and they wouldn't refer to each other by name anyway. Each character has their own traits, but few virtues. "Jerry" is the typical would-be intellectual theater geek who hits not so subtly on his students; his relationship with "Mary" fails quickly and silently because he is over-analytical and so excited to finally be with her, he seems to ignore her discomforture over the whole cheating with the husband's best friend thing. "Terri" is not the repressed wannabe lesbian in a bad heterosexual relationship, but rather seemingly wants simply to have silence during sex. "Barry" is frustrated in his marriage because he can't make his wife happy with him, so he focuses on making himself happy; "Mary" is not happy at all, with anyone, least of all in her own skin. The two non-attached characters have issues as well: "Cary" is brutally honest to the point of being a sociopath; a scene in a bookstore where he runs into "Terri" is particularly telling - he starts out sort of friendly but a bit intense and ends it with her verbally eviscerated. "Cheri," her would-be paramour, doesn't talk during sex like her predecessor, but does ask too many questions and puts her new lover off a bit by doing so. These characters are all venomous snakes with absolutely no semblence of an understanding of what it means to be in a relationship - they want what they want, and can't understand why their partners won't compromise; if they can't make their partners happy, they wonder self-absorbedly if it's them. "Cary" is the unique exception to the rule because when somebody falls into his web, it is as exactly as brief and under the exact terms he dictates, and he doesn't let himself get emotionally attached. Others are more fragile than they appear: When "Terri" finds out about "Jerry"'s affair, she seems very upset, but appears to have forgotten her own deception, as if it's okay for her to cheat but not for her boyfriend. When she confronts him later, she points out: "At least I went outside our calling circle." The dialogue slices with horrific candor; notice particularly a scene in a men's sauna that begins innocently enough with the question: "Who was your best lay?" and ends with "Cary" taking the ball and totally running it off the field. Notice how LaBute frames this scene - slightly off-center from "Cary" and a painfully slow zoom into a close-up on his face as he relays a show-stopping, stunning monologue. Then notice the reaction shots. The payoff is one of keen darkly comic timing and it's pitch-perfect. If the film ends with some combinations of characters we can anticipate, the final shot is one that will totally catch you off guard; LaBute himself admits there is no inkling that it could be coming, though with a cast of six, it's almost inevitable. It's not cheating so much as a frightening portent of the potential things to come. This is, indeed, the sort of date movie that makes you wanna go home alone. One of the year's best films!

NOTE: The flywheels at the MPAA originally "slapped" this with an NC-17 before reducing it to an R upon reflection. There is sexual content, but it isn't graphic, there's no nudity, and saucy and graphic language does not an "adult movie" make.

Ang Lee's sparkling adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel is a delightful, dazzling, luscious portrait of passion reigning supreme among the proper British upper-crust. Henry Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson in a brief cameo) dies, leaving his second wife and a trio of daughters near destitute and forced to live in a cottage supplied by a relative. There is Marianne (Kate Winslet), the young and passionate middle child who dreams of romance worth dying for - "like Romeo & Juliet" who knows Shakespeare's sonnets by heart and can play a mean piano forte and Elinor (Emma Thompson), the wise, thoughtful and reserved one who has yet to find a husband. It becomes imperative to marry in order to survive, and three potential sutors (Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman and Greg Wise) soon come to call. The film was directed by Ang Lee ("Eat Drink Man Woman") and the screenplay is by Emma Thompson, who keeps the spirit of Austen's novel in tact. Lee might seem like an unlikely choice to direct a romantic dramedy by the likes of Jane Austen, but the results here are impeccable. The film is a glorious physical production and a delightful charmer to boot. The cast is uniformly excellent. A smart, funny, wonderful romantic comedy.

Mike Leigh's bleak, disturbing but darkly funny portrait of Apocalyptic prophecy, sexual deviance, and unabashed misanthropy in working-class London on the cusp of the new Millennium is one of the most important films of its decade. Leigh gives us two of the most repellent male characters ever put on film, and then hypnotizes us with their exploits. First, we meet Johnny (David Thewlis, who won Best Actor at Cannes). In the film's first shot, the handheld camera rushes forward as he has rough sex with a crying, screaming woman against a wall in a dark Manchester alleyway. She breaks free and runs for help. He runs away and steals a car, driving to London. Is he a rapist? I think he's just trying to express the sense he has that anyone who thinks they want him doesn't know what they're getting themselves into. Arriving in "the Big Shitty," he goes looking for his former girlfriend Louise (Lesley Sharp), but first meets her "wicky wacky friend" Sophie (the late Katrin Cartlidge). She's into rough sex and almost neo-medeival garb, and is drawn to Johnny immediately. Across town is the truly disgusting Jeremy (Greg Cruttwell), a vile uppercrust businessman who likes to verbally and physically debase just about every woman he meets. Johnny is smart, but seems quite destitute, getting by on his wits - which occasion some people to want to beat the snot out of him. Jeremy seems to have had every privilege, and believes that it is his good fortune which allows him the opportunities to treat everyone who comes into his orbit like garbage. Feeling suffocated by Sophie's advances, and Louise's lack of same, Johnny sets off into the cold London night, and spends the next few days meeting and interacting with some of the saddest, loneliest, most alienated people the city has to offer, partaking in debates about the literal elements of the Bible and the Apocalyptic quatrains of Nostradamus. Among those he has run-ins with are a young Scottish couple (including Ewen Bremner), who lose each other easily in the crowded city streets, a curiously philosophically minded security guard (Peter Wight), a "sad-faced" and quiet cafe girl (the lovely and fragile Gina McKee), an older woman who dances in her underwear in the window, and others. Meanwhile, Jeremy arrives at Louise and Sophie's flat, claiming to be the landlord and looking for their uptight roommate Sandra (Claire Skinner), who is on safari in Zimbabwe. What he does to terrorize and harrass Sophie and Louise makes them wish Johnny were still around. What Leigh accomplishes with this juxtaposition is no mean feat; he is essentially saying that there are varying degrees of sociopaths and vileness and that being near Johnny is maybe a walk in the park compared to being anywhere near Jeremy. Writer-director Leigh has a curious way of working: he comes up with a rough theme or concept, hires his cast, and (having worked for years in the theater) spends a lot of time improvising and rehearsing to flesh out characters, dialogue and situations before finally conceiving a finished screenplay. It is this unique work ethic that had previously yielded only three features: "Bleak Moments" (1971), "High Hopes" (1989), and "Life Is Sweet" (1991), all about working-class Londoners trying to get by in harsh times. However, none of those films equal this one for its sheer melancholy; the characters look pale and the cinematography by Dick Pope paints the frames in a flat, high-contrast tone, as if to underline the utter coldness and emotional distance of these people - who are all, in a sense, naked. Andrew Dickson's musical score is all pianos and harsh violin strings, and lends the film a momentum and immediacy that is even present in its slowest, quitest moments. Thewlis gives the film's best performance as Johnny, meeting each new situation with a curious sense of witty and funny (albeit dark) humor; he is someone who is unabashedly himself and noone else. That this gets him into some trouble is, perhaps, inevitable. If I've made the film sound totally serious, I must clarify: Johnny's sense of humor, dark as it is, makes this film curiously entertaining. It is a brutal film, but it is an honest one. As tough to watch as it is, Leigh's film weaves a remarkable spell; you can't take your eyes off it.

Writer-director Mike Leigh's ninth feature is a harrowing, absorbing emotional drama set in 1950 London. The film stars the plum-pudding-faced Imelda Staunton in the title role as a housekeeper and devoted wife and mother. Her husband (Phil Davis) works in a garage with his brother (Adrian Scarborough). Their son (Daniel Mays) works in a tailor's shop. Their daughter (Alex Kelly) is a factory worker who is being courted by a mild-mannered and quiet young man (Eddie Marsan) who has the family's blessings. Vera has a secret: she "helps young girls out" when they "can't manage." This, in her case, means she provides a service to young girls, giving homemade abortions. Vera doesn't see what she's doing as wrong (she doesn't accept money for her trouble), she simply sees it as doing a good deed for someone who has noone else to turn to. One of her most affecting clients is a young rape victim (Sally Hawkins) who is the daughter of her well-to-do employer. Unfortunately, not only was all of this illegal at the time, but her methods are...less than sanitary. I will tread lightly here so as to avoid the proverbial political football: Vera is a good woman. The film is not about the rights and wrongs of abortion, about the legality or illegality of Vera's methods, or about the politics that such things can involve. This film is about a profoundly good woman, nothing more. That being said, it's only a matter of time before the long arm of the law stretches to the Drake family's door. Mike Leigh started in the English theatre world before turning to filmmaking with "Bleak Moments" in 1971. His method is unnusal: he likes to form a cast of actors, and a basic rough concept. He then improvises and rehearses with them to contrive dialogue and scenes. Then he fashions a formal screenplay and films it. Not easy to get financial backing when you don't even have a proper ending to your film before you start. No wonder Leigh hasn't made more films in the thirty-odd years since his debut effort. Leigh's work varies from the light-hearted ("Life is Sweet," 1991) to the bleak but darkly funny ("Naked," 1993) to the dramatic ("Secrets & Lies," 1996) and sometimes he mixes the two ("All or Nothing," 2002). With this film, he has crafted his bleakest work to date. Staunton gives a remarkable performance as Vera, leaving an indelible impression; she's a marvel. Leigh's film has a profound sense of time and place and that is reflected in the art direction and in Dick Pope's creamy cinematography (it's their first period effort since 1999's grand Gilbert & Sullivan biopic "Topsy-Turvy"). This is, above all else, a moving and thought-provoking film, not to be missed.

Barry Levinson's ingenious satire was remarkably prescient when it was originally released during the time that President Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal broke in the news in late 1997/early 1998; its story is even more relevant today as satire and a frightening warning of the shape of things to come. Robert De Niro stars as Conrad Brean, a spin-doctor, "Mr. Fix-It" as Winifred Ames (Anne Heche) calls him, a one-man solution to any problem the White House needs handled. In this case, Ms. Ames calls Conrad in when the President, on the eve of his potential re-election, is reported to have had sex with a Firefly girl in "the office behind the Oval Office." Conrad's solution is to go to Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) and have him "produce" a fake war with Albania. Soon, the trio enlists help from a crazy country singer (Willie Nelson), the "Fad King" (Denis Leary) and a fashion consultant (Andrea Martin), and there's a theme song being produced, some grainy "news footage" being shot in a studio with a young Canadian actress (Kirsten Dunst) playing an "Albanian victim," and whatever other tricks Brean and Motss can finagle. The screenplay, based on the book "American Hero" by Larry Beinhart, was co-written by David Mamet, and it shows. The dialogue comes fast, furious, and just a hair too clever. The plot sommersaults its way through twist after twist, and if after a while the film feels a bit too self-satisfied, you're nevertheless nodding to yourself and thinking, "Of course," at whatever this comedy dream team has cooked up next. The most startlingly timeless political satire since Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" (1964).

Writer-director Jeff Lipsky?s sophomore effort (after 1997?s Childhood?s End) was a delightful, heart-warming, ultimately bittersweet romantic dramedy that literally traced the relationship Stuart (Justin Kirk) and Nicole (Julianne Nicholson) had over the course of a few years, starting with their mutual friends? set-up of the couple on a blind date, moving through marriage and marital troubles, attempted pregnancy, and an ending that is perhaps inevitable, but no less heartbreakingly real for it. A real sleeper!

Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" (2007) is a fantastic, well-wrought drama about two brothers who join the fight for the Irish Republican Army only to come at odds with each other when the British sign a pathetic excuse for a treaty, integrating the Irish into the British Army, while making Ireland its "own republic" (under the British Empire's rule).

Powerfully acted (especially by Cillian Murphy as the doctor/soldier protagonist Damien), this is ultimately a story of how politics and ethics can intervene in the connection between family, and how ultimately you have to do what you believe in to the very end.

Very well-made, with luscious green scenery brought out beautifully, this is a great film! The deserved winner of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or (Best Film)!

Sidney Lumet's latest masterpiece, made at the age of 83 (which should not make a difference by the way) reveals an American master in top form. This brilliant, twisted and twisting crime thriller has a plot I don't want to spoil (the trailers and reviews will tell you more than I). Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman are brothers down on their luck; they both need money (and as Danny DeVito once said via David Mamet: "Everybody needs money! That's why they call it money!"). They plot a jewelry store robbery. The robbery quickly goes awry (to say the least!), and we see various leap-froggings through the chronology and points of view, which differ occasionally from sequence to sequence. For Sidney Lumet, who made such tough New York films as "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975) and "Serpico" (1979), this is a personal triumph. The screenplay by first-timer Kelly Masterson is like a puzzle, where you know the main picture going in, and the Devil's in the details of all the smaller pieces. Without giving anything away, I will say that, unusual for a "crime picture," this film has a strong emotional core, which makes for an astonishingly devastating experience. The cast is exemplary, with Hawke as the disheveled deadbeat father who loves his family but can't pull it together. There's Marisa Tomei as Hoffman's dissatisfied wife, and Albert Finney, heartbreaking as their father. As the situation snowballs out of control and the two brothers get in further and further over their heads, watch Hoffman's face - the distortions he makes on his forehead, and the pain in his eyes tells it all. The old man sitting a few aisles ahead said, as he rose from his chair at the film's end: "There wasn't a single character I liked in that thing!" Not the point, sir! Not the point! This was one of the year's best films. NOTE: For a more recent example of ostensibly the same basic concept, see Woody Allen's "Cassandra's Dream" (2008) with Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell as two British brothers in a similar predicament. Not as strong, but interesting for contrast's sake.

Writer-director David Lynch?s follow-up to 2001?s Mulholland Drive is a phantasmagorical cinematic experiment of the highest order. Again telling a story of an actress in an increasingly cold, alien, warped (read: Lynchian) version of Hollywood, this time Lynch returns to collaborate with Laura Dern (for the first time since 1990?s Wild at Heart) to spin a yarn about ?a woman in trouble? (or so say the trailers and posters). In reality (is there such a thing with Lynch anymore?), this is a powerful piece of digital filmmaking, unspooling over 3 hours to sometimes monotonous, often stunning, occasionally hilarious and, ultimately, brilliant results. It just about breaks the test tubes, but Lynch knows what he?s doing!

David Mamet's sharp Hollywood satire is a sly, acidically-witted and often hilarious poke in the eyes to the egos, personal lives and would-be wit of the people who make movies. "The Old Mill" has come to the small, idyllic hamlet of Waterford, Vermont ("Where is it? That's where it is!," says the director to an underling over the phone). The director is an amoral jackass named Walt Price (William H. Macy), a would-be streetwise Hollywood hack who has been hired to direct a screenplay by playwright Joseph Turner White (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Flanked by vicious producer Marty Rossen (David Paymer), Walt must deal with the newfound religion of his buxom young starlet Claire Wellesley (Sarah Jessica Parker), and the obsession and ego of major movie star Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin), who "likes 14-year-old girls" ("Let's get him half a 28-year-old girl," commands Walt, half-in-jest), all the while trying to ingratiate himself and his crew to the town mayor and his wife (Charles Durning and Patti LuPone). This could've been the tale of how a Hollywood film crew comes in and starts dictating terms, but instead becomes the story of how the good people of the town come to affect and be affected by the crew - especially the star-struck young daughter (Julia Stiles) of the local diner proprieter (Ricky Jay), who is always reminding people of what it would be like to live under Communism. Then there's the writer, who is soon struck by a sharp-witted, word-gifted young book store manager (Rebecca Pidgeon, a.k.a. Mrs. Mamet) who, when they meet, is already engaged to a pompous, self-serving would-be politician (Clark Gregg). How these elements collide in detail I will leave for you to discover. Writer-director David Mamet ("Glengarry Glen Ross") is a talented playwright-turned-filmmaker who has been making relatively small-budget noir-ish thrillers ("House of Games," "The Spanish Prisoner," "Homicide"), morality plays ("Oleanna" and "The Winslow Boy") and (on occasion) outright comedies ("Things Change" and now this) for about twenty years. If this film, like the screenplay he co-wrote for Barry Levinson's political satire "Wag the Dog" (1997), is a bit self-satisfied after a while, it's also razor-sharp and very very funny, and to give away the jokes would be a crime, if not a sin. The humor is knowing and smart, mixing clever dialogue with cutting one-liners (from Walt's typical fallback position "I'll give him an Associate Producer credit" to his motto "It's not a lie. It's a gift for fiction"). The A-list cast is all top-notch and right in their wheelhouse - Macy as the phony Holllywood director who spews false sensitivity when it suits him, Paymer as his almost evil benefactor, Baldwin and Parker as the self-absorbed and destructive stars, and at its center, Hoffman and Pidgeon as the only truly good people in a sea of corruption and immorality. How these two smart, funny people find each other and make it through is the small but effective heart of this movie, rendering Mamet's script as more than one colossal, devilish in-joke ("Did you see the grosses for 'Gandhi 2'?). Okay, so skewering Hollywood isn't exactly anything new - it's been done in ways both light (Christopher Guest's "The Big Picture") and pitch-black (Robert Altman's "The Player") and sometimes the results are a bit mixed, but coming from Mamet's pen (as his "Wag the Dog" did to a slightly lesser degree), it all feels fresher and from a slightly new angle. The results are a comedic gem, memorable and hugely rewarding. One of the year's best films!

Michael Mann's epic is a profoundly angering film, a deeply absorbing thriller, a passionate and inspiring drama, and a fascinating expose of the lengths to which one particular industry will sometimes go to maintain their profit margin and silence potential dissenters. Based on true events, the film concerns Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a tobacco scientist in Kentucky who, when we first meet him, is packing his office up and being escorted from the high-end cigarette company he works for. Soon, he's approached to consult on some documents and their meaning for Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), a producer for the CBS evening news program "60 Minutes" with Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer). Wigand offers to help decode the documents for Bergman and it's not long before his bosses (represented by Michael Gambon) are not so subtly threatening him by "expanding and clarifying the wording of his confidentiality agreement" and giving him ultimatums with regards to whether he can say word one on any subject relating to tobacco and its dettrimental nature with regards to human health. Soon, Wigand, his two young daughters and his wife (Diane Venora) are receiving e-mails threatening their lives and bullets are being put in their mailbox. Inevitably, Wigand is forced to defend his right to testify against the tobacco industry as a whole on the negative effects of nicotine, and he agrees to film a famous interview for "60 Minutes" in which he makes a very public confession about what he knows as a former tobacco scientist. Then the plot thickens: CBS Corporate is concerned about potential litigation and damages they'd have to pay to the tobacco industry if they were to air the original interview with Wigand, and executive producer Don Hewitt (Philip Baker Hall, having a great year) is all but forced to buckle under the pressure from a high-heeled corporate succubus (Gina Gershon) and her feckless lacky (Stephen Tobolowsky). Soon, there's an "alternate version" being aired and Bergman and Wigand feel screwed over by the lack of integrity and strong moral fiber on behalf of "60 Minutes" and CBS. Michael Mann has become a masterful filmmaker when it comes to giving us absorbing and deeply involving epics with cool, austere style and terrific acting - see his modern opera of cops & robbers, "Heat" (1995). With this film, he tops himself, painting a broad and detailed, utterly involving portrait of a man whose very livelyhood was severely placed in jeopardy until justice prevailed and censorship and fear of liability from evil and vindictive corporations was quashed. Al Pacino is terrific as Lowell Bergman, the producer who simply wants to protect his source and get his story "out there," but is seemingly powerless in the face of syccophants who are willing to bend to the will of their corporate overlords and that of the highly questional tobacco industry. Russell Crowe is brilliant as Jeffrey Wigand, who becomes something of a posterboy for sticking by your guns and fighting for your rights against oppression, threats and censorship. Christopher Plummer provides a nice little portrait of Mike Wallace, a strong-willed and sharp-witted veteran who simply wants to do his job and do it well, and for whom - eventually - enough is enough. The film, as I hinted at before, has a great cool look thanks to the lush and gorgeous cinematography, made of 2.35:1 widescreen camerawork, largely handheld, with washed-out blue-green lighting, by Dante Spinotti. The film is unique in that it manages to run 157 minutes and span a rather long time, involves tons of information and complex plot maneuvers involving many characters, and yet we are never lost for very long, if at all. It is a credit to Mann and his co-writer Eric Roth, who adapted an aptly-titled article called "The Man Who Knew Too Much" by Marie Brenner, that they manage to absorb and export tons of facts, massaging the truth for dramatic purposes here and there, while more or less keeping the true story's integrity in tact, all the while expressing it in the form of a top-notch thriller. The film is smart, engaging, deeply moving, sometimes sardonically funny, and one of the year's best films.

NOTE: The film was nominated for 7 Oscars including Actor (Crowe), Director, Cinematography, Editing, Adapted Screenplay and Picture.

Writer-director Lucky McKee's brilliant solo debut is about a socially awkward girl (Angela Bettis) who grows up with a lazy eye (covered in school by an eye-patch) and who then works, as an adult, in a veterinary clinic. She is lonely, she is odd, and her best friend in a porcelain doll her mother gave her when she couldn't make any "real friends." Enter Adam (Jeremy Sisto), a Dario Argento-idolizing film student whose idea of a first date is watching his own student film, in which a romantic picnic devolves into erotic cannibalism. May sees him as almost perfect, asks if he thinks she's weird, to which his reply is "Yes... I like weird." To say he is unprepared for her response to this is a bit of an understatement. She also has a budding relationship with her lesbian coworker Polly (Anna Faris). The film mixes dark comedy with creepy undertones, romance of a similar ilk and, ultimately, evolves into a dimension of truly disturbing horror. Bettis' performance as May, in collusion with McKee's astonishingly crafted screenplay, is perfectly modulated from the beginning to alternate between putting the audience off, and yet making you feel sympathy, even empathy, not unlike a non-paranormal version of Sissy Spacek in Brian DePalma's "Carrie" (1976). By the time the film reaches its horrific, perhaps inevitable, conclusion, you've been oddly prepared yet somewhat caught unawares; it works like a dream. This is, ultimately, as remarkably intelligent and thoughtful a horror film as anyone could ever hope to see.

Writer-director John Cameron Mitchell's self-proclaimed "post-punk neo-glam rock musical" is more visually alive, musically delightful, hilarious and, ultimately, profoundly moving than we could ever have anticipated. Mitchell stars as Hedwig, the leader of a would-be punk band called The Angry Inch (named for the aftermath of a botched surgery) which is touring the U.S. salad bar/family restaurant circuit via a franchise called Bilgewater's, stalking Hedwig's successful one-time protege Tommy Gnosis (Michael Pitt of Larry Clark's "Bully"). Hedwig is flanked, as always, by her manager and would-be conscience Phyllis Stein (Andrea Martin), without whom Hedwig might be just as lost as ever. Via flashbacks, we learn that Hedwig was born in Communist East Berlin and raised during the lead-up to the destruction of the Berlin Wall, that he was in fact once called Hansel, a "slip of a girly-boy" who met a big, black American GI named Luther and decided to have a sex-change in order to get married, that she was raised on music by the likes of David Bowie and Iggy Pop (among many others) before growing to so love their sound that she would try to make a living out of emulating or copying it. The tale of Hedwig's would-be rise and quick downfall is punctuated particularly by the introduction of Tommy Gnosis (Pitt), an uninspired and unoriginal "Jesus freak" turned rock musician who, somewhat ironically, steals Hedwig's songs and becomes an international superstar with them. This turns Hedwig into a bitter, mean-spirited, acid-tongued viper even toward her disillusioned "husband" and band-mate Yitzhak (actress Miriam Shor, wearing a convincing beard), an aspiring "Rent"-cast member in the making. In a sense, this film has a character at its center with the unconventional sexuality and self-absorbed, egotistical nature of a Fassbinder heroine ("The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant" came to mind on occasion). Mitchell's performance as Hedwig/Hansel is one that is at times repugnant, often funny, and ultimately quite moving. The film, based on the 1997 Off-Broadway musical, seems inspired as much by the musical influences of the character as by other glam rock musicals like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975). Mitchell, working with cinematographer Frank G. DeMarco, seems to have been utterly cut loose with his visual style here: they employ a hyperkinetic camera, occasionally frenetic editing, even animation (as in the heartwrenching and funny number "Origin of Love") - there's even a dreamy shot from Hedwig's POV where he jumps off a stage, floats improbably straight and seemingly forever above the crowd, and the whole time the sides of a wig can be seen on the edges of the frame. The songs, by Mitchell and Stephen Trask (who plays one of the band mates), are often hilarious, sometimes poignant, always entertaining - from the fun "Wig in a Box" to the sad "Midnight Radio," from the hilariously furious "Angry Inch" to the eerie "Wicked Little Town." Ultimately, this is a film about a journey of self-discovery - although Hedwig seems unaware of the journey she's on for most of the film's running time. It's about discovering who or what you are and being it, finding your place in the world and embracing it - not just for Hedwig, but for everyone. This was one of the year's most entertaining and, in fact, best films.

Writer-director John Cameron Mitchell?s Shortbus is the director?s brilliant follow-up to his edgy musical comedy, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001). This time, Mitchell has cast largely amateur and unknown actors as a group of lonely, sad people post-9/11 who are searching for sex and, ultimately, love. They all converge upon a nightly salon (hence the title), where games, orgies, conversations and art emerge from the miasma to form a sort of sexual underground that deserves to be above ground. Among the standouts in this terrific unknown cast are Sook-Yin Lee as Sofie, a sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, Lindsay Beamish as Severin, the melancholy dominatrix who takes polaroids and labels them in her spare time as an aspiring artist, and Justin Bond as?himself(?), the host and emcee of Shortbus. It?s a remarkably moving, funny and beautiful film to behold! Look for Mitchell in the orgy scene.

Andrew Niccol's intriguing, thought-provoking sci-fi/noir is about dreaming of a better life, and what one is willing to do in order to prove they are worthy of that life. In the "Near-Future," being born "the natural way" has fallen by the wayside in favor of being an "In Vitro." Unfortunately for him, Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke) was born when being what has come to be called a "Faith Birth" was still fashionable. He was also born with a congenital heart condition. His parents (Elias Koteas and Jayne Brooke) decided to have another child, one "worthy of his father's name," and Vincent never quite measured up. Now, in a newfangled society that champions the genetically elite and discriminates illegally against those who are "imperfect," he has gone from being declared "Valid" to being "In-Valid." Determined to get to space by any means necessary, Vincent finds an unscrupulous salesman (Tony Shalhoub) to help purchase the identity of Jerome Morrow (Jude Law), a former British swimming star who was paralyzed in an auto-accident. Living with Jerome, Vincent has used his bodily fluids, his look and, yes, even his heartbeats to rise through the ranks of Gattaca, the Aerospace Corporation that has become the future's version of NASA. A plot creeps in when it seems someone has murdered the mission director and two Federal agents (Loren Dean and Alan Arkin) must search for the killer. Meanwhile, Vincent must dodge the suspicious looks of his mission supervisor (Gore Vidal), while wooing an attractive fellow flight coordinator named Irene (Uma Thurman). Will Vincent remain free, or will one of them find out his secret? The film has been written and directed by Andrew Niccol, and is an astonishing debut. He creates this world so fully and seems to know it inside-out. His film is full of profound ideas, plopped down in the middle of that old Hitchcock standby plot, The Innocent Man Wrongly Accused, yet the plot serves the ideas, not the other way around; it is deeply involving, and surprisingly hard to predict. The look of the film, achieved by cinematographer Slawomir Idziak ("Three Colors: Blue"), is often cold but beautiful, prone to a color palette of oddly cold amber colors, juxtaposed with glorious deep blues and sea-greens. The film is set to a lush, vibrant and insistent musical score by Michael Nyman, made of pianos and strings, melancholy and beautiful at once. In its tale of someone who is considered "less-than" overcoming many obstacles put in place by society, this film is profoundly moving; it's one of the year's best films.

NOTE: The film was nominated for an Oscar for Art Direction-Set Decoration.

Mike Nichols' epic political satire is a smart, funny look at the process of campaigning for the Presidency through the eyes of maybe the most idealistic campaign manager in political history. Henry Burton (Adrian Lester) is the son of a famous black civil rights leader, on the fence about his "allegiance" to a black congressman, and seeing a reporter for the Black Advocate. Henry's life changes when he's roped into being the campaign manager for the relatively unknown Jack Stanton (John Travolta), a Southern governor with his eye on the White House. Soon, Henry is advising Stanton and wife Susan (Emma Thompson) on the what's and how's of the campaign trail, as well as dealing with his new colleagues: Richard Jemmons (Billy Bob Thornton), a cynical and sleazy redneck (and proud of it) who is perpetually hitting on a Winona Ryder-esque campaign worker; Howard (Paul Guilfoyle), the one that roped Henry in; and the lovely and savvy Daisy (Maura Tierney), who becomes romantically involved with Henry. Nichols and longtime collaborator Elaine May, who based her screenplay on the novel "by Anonymous," manage to cram a ton of material into a 143-minute film, following the campaign through challenges which range from the need to get known in the states they're campaigning in, to weathering the fallout from the Governor's alleged affair with his wife's hairdresser and some suspect answering machine tapes, to an unexpected development involving the teenage babysitter, and finally dealing with multiple opponents for the Democratic nomination. The main opponent turns out to be former Florida Governor Freddy Picker (Larry Hagman of TV's "Dallas"), a goody-two-shoes type who dropped out of the political scene mysteriously in the late 1970s and who finds himself back in the game when a colleague falls ill. Through it all, the Stanton campaign has by its side Libby Holden (Kathy Bates), "the Dust-Buster," a former mental patient who tracks down the sources of dirt and extinguishes potential fires that could derail the Governor's bid for the Presidency - or do in the enemy. We see all of this through Henry's eyes, get an entry-level view of the political process and the business of campaigning, and there are a tremendous amount of laughs along the way. The film is fiercely funny, packed with sharp one-liners and crackling with great dialogue, yet not lacking in pathos. What Henry learns on this journey will stick with him the rest of his life, and we sense, inform his decisions and character well into the future - whether he finds himself working in the White House or not. It probably goes without saying that this film wears its parallels to Bill and Hillary Clinton on its sleeve, and they are indeed rather obvious. This is nevertheless a great film on its own merits. The performances are uniformly excellent: from Travolta's smarmy Southern charmer with a corrupt heart, to Lester's doe-eyed "true believer," to Thornton's James Carville-inspired letch. A standout for me, however, was Emma Thompson as the Hillary-inspired Susan, a strong, intelligent and dry-witted woman who knows her husband is unfaithful but looks the other way until the public humiliation becomes too much to bear, who stands by him despite the egg on her face. Then there's Kathy Bates. As the aging ex-hippie earth-mother Libby, she gives the film a moral center, gets some of the funniest lines, and gives two of the most heartbreaking mini-monologues you could've ever heard. Her Libby is a firecracker of a creation, an old-school hillbilly who knows the game, fights hard, plays fair to a point, and yet has a line she will not cross. It's at that line that the film finds its heart, and we are surprised how involved we've become and how much we've been moved. Mike Nichols ("The Graduate," "The Birdcage") is an intelligent director who knows how to make solid comedies, and here reaches beyond his own personal best. This is one of the year's best films!

"We're happy. ...Aren't we?"

Mike Nichols' intelligent, wicked, tough, sardonically-witted yet oddly romantically-tinged character study examines the dynamics between four rotten people who seek happiness and cause each other nothing but pain in the process. Dan (Jude Law) is a London obituary writer who is walking down the street and meets the gaze of Alice (Natalie Portman), who is then hit by a car. Taking her to the hospital, they get to talking and the conversation just flows, revealing among other things that she's a stripper who has come over from New York City to finish a messy relationship. They get together, time passes, and Dan writes a novel about their relationship. Anna (Julia Roberts) is the photographer who takes Dan's picture for the book jacket. Immediately, Dan is drawn to her and both women sense it. In the film's single funniest scene, Dan goes to a chat room, pretending to be a busty blonde called "Anna." Like a moth to a flame, he draws in Larry (Clive Owen), the fourth side of this sexual triangle, a dermotologist who is intrigued by the shamelessly forward sexual nature of "Anna" and agrees to meet "her" at an aquarium. And thus the real Anna happens to be there and through serendipity meets Larry. Over the years, these characters will circle in and out of relationships with each other, committing adultery, deceiving well and then opening up with excessive candor about the successful nature of their deceits. This is a film above all about four fiercely articulate (or just plain fierce) and brutally honest people who never learned the word "tact," or achieved a sense of "good timing." They fall in and out of love. When they are scorned, they go for the jugular. They pound each others' buttons into submission, and emotionally and verbally eviscerate each other. At one point, a character asks how another man tastes to his wife and she says, "Like you, but sweeter." He responds, "That's the spirit." This film could've been called "Adults Behaving Badly." Mike Nichols is no stranger to the field of battle between the sexes, having made "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966) so many years ago. Like that film, this is based on a stage play, adapted by its author Patrick Marber. His characters are intelligent and literate, cruel and cold. Their words cut through flesh with razor-sharp precision, and they have no conscience about who they hurt or how badly. The film this most reminds me of is Neil LaBute's "Your Friends & Neighbors" (1998). That great film had similar shiftings of sexual relationships, adultery, deceit, brutal honesty (when the time came), and self-centered characters who didn't appear to care who they hurt. It was called "the kind of date movie that makes you wanna go home alone." So is this one.

Alex Proyas' sci-fi epic is an engrossing mystery, an intelligent thriller, and a visually stunning masterwork. Rufus Sewell stars as John Murdoch, who when we first meet him wakes up in a bathtub, the ceiling light swaying back and forth above him. He has no memory of who he is or how he got there. As John ventures out into the night of this 40s noir-style city, he will discover that it never ends - the sun never rises here. He is pursued throughout the city by a mysterious cadre of pale, black fedora and trenchcoat-wearing men (led by Richard O'Brien of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" fame). Who are they? What do they want? He is soon contacted by Dr. Daniel P. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland), who seems to be the only one who knows what's truly going on. He may have a wife named Emma (Jennifer Connelly) who cheated on him. Then there's Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt), who is trying to investigate a series of hooker murders in the city; is John a viable suspect? As John descends deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine layers of this world, he'll discover that old cliche "nothing is what it seems" has more than a little merit. The film was directed by Alex Proyas ("The Crow") from his original screenplay (with rewrites by Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer). The story has elements of Hitchcock's old standby: the Innocent Man Wrongly Accused, though John never quite manages to be outright accused. With cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, working on wonderful sets in Australia designed by Patrick Tatopoulos, Proyas has crafted a brilliant and wonderful modern classic of both science fiction and neo-noir. Comparisons have been made to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1927) and Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" (1982). They are apt, but Proyas has made an original - a science fiction film in an entirely new and fully-realized world, expressing interesting ideas and weaving a spellbinding story to boot. The results are surprisingly moving; this is one of the year's best films.

NOTE: Freshly on DVD, the long-awaited Director's Cut runs 111 minutes. There are snippets of dialogue and shots added in, a somewhat altered soundtrack, and most importantly: mercifully gone is the superfluous studio-mandated Kiefer Sutherland narration that plagued the pre-title sequence of the theatrical version! Also: if you recognize the sets, some were reused for The Wachowski Brothers' "The Matrix" (1999).

Jason Reitman's film invites the audience to have one of two reactions in strict polar opposition to one another. Sure, you could resist its almost cloyingly independent/pseudo-edgy vibe from the first frame through the end credits, which ranges from a too-clever by half adolescent narration (by stripper turned screenwriter Diablo Cody), to the hand-drawn rhotoscoping title sequence, to the cutesy, catchy and childish songs of Kimya Dawson. You can steel yourself against the heart-warming story of an unplanned pregnancy and the softening of the sardonically witted 16 year old heroine (Ellen Page from "Hard Candy") at the film's center. You could even argue that the film is flatly directed, with no style or color to its mise-en-scene. But that would make you a cold and bitter person. Ultimately, mine is the latter reaction - one of complete and utter adoration. This is my favorite film of 2007 and everything I mentioned above, which should be an irritatingly self-conscious, collective shot in the foot, is in actuality a ginormous credit to why this film has been given so many kudos from so many critics and audiences. From first-time writer Cody's brilliant screenplay, to the more than game cast: Page, former "Arrested Development" alums Michael Cera and Jason Bateman, "Alias"' Jennifer Garner, "The West Wing"'s Allison Janney and "Spider-Man"'s own J.K. Simmons, Reitman's follow-up to his inspired anti-tobacco satire "Thank You For Smoking" (2005) is, in reality, a complete and utter gem.



NOTE: Nominated for 4 Oscars, including Best Picture and Actress, it (deservedly) won for Best Original Screenplay!

Tim Robbins' film ennobles filmmaking with its dramatization of the relationship between a nun and a Louisiana prison inmate who asks for her help and, with it, seeks salvation. Susan Sarandon stars as Sister Helen Prejean, a nun whose assistance is requested by Matthew Poncelot (Sean Penn), an inmate in Angola State Prison in Louisiana, awaiting execution for the rape of a young woman and murder of her and her boyfriend. Prejean, as appalled as she is by Poncelot, nevertheless takes his case to try to advocate for a stay of execution, but is ultimately his spiritual advisor. Tim Robbins' film is the follow-up to his much-different Hollywood satire/mockumentary "Bob Roberts" (1992), and is a massive step-up. Robbins, who wrote and directed, based on Prejean's autobiographical book, paints a powerful portrait of a relationship between a spiritual woman and a man who is guilty of wickedness, but who is willing to repent if it means the redemption of his soul. It happens to take my personal idealogical view - to hate the "sin" but love the "sinner." Essentially, even he who commits the most vile act must be allowed to redeem himself in your eyes and (if not be forgiven) at least be accepted as a human being. The cinematography by Roger Deakins is solid and wonderful, particularly in the prison, where compositions actually make the characters physically closer as they become spiritually closer as the film goes on; notice how at one point a scene is done entirely with one character in the two-way glass and the other reflected alongside them, back and forth. Penn and Sarandon's performances are astonishing in their empathy; they get deep into the skins of their characters. This film avoids so many pitfalls of typical Hollywood conventions, instead opting for the emotionally truthful. The result is one of the more moving and amazing film experiences of the decade.

Robert Rodriguez directed this bizarre and fun twist on the horror genre (from a clever screenplay by Quentin Tarantino). George Clooney and Tarantino are Seth and Richie Gecko, a couple of badass criminals on the run in Texas. They hijack a family (led by now faithless ex-preacher Harvey Keitel and lovely young daughter Juliette Lewis). The band of outlaws takes to a Mexican strip bar called the Titty Twister (an absolute triumph of production design!) and finds that they are not in Texas anymore (well...duh!). Soon, this motley crew is forced to face down an army of vampires (including Salma Hayek as queen stripper Satanico Pandemonium!). This sleaze-o-rama grade-zilch horror story is preceded by a good hour or more of well-written if cliched crime movie material (Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?). Still, the performances and Rodriguez's loving treatment of the genre elevate the material to near-art.

Robert Rodriguez's extended and unrated DVD release of his half of the horror/camp double feature "Grindhouse" (the second half is Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof") is as gory, goofy and fun as a zombie film can get. The film stars Rose McGowan as Cherry Darling, a go-go dancer who (at the urging of those around her) thinks she ought become a stand-up comedienne. Freddy Rodriguez (formerly of "Six Feet Under" and perhaps atoning for the dreadful "Harsh Times") is El Wray, a wrecking-truck driver with a penchant for fancy footwork, knives and general violence. When a mysterious outbreak hits the small Texas border town, turning the local populace into flesh-munching zombies, it's up to Cherry and former lover Wray (and a small band of survivors) to fend off the evil invasion. Marley Shelton and Josh Brolin (who had a great year in this film, alongside Paul Haggis' "In the Valley of Elah," Ridley Scott's "American Gangster" and-of course-the Coen Brothers' "No Country for Old Men") are standouts among a stellar B-movie cast, truly getting into the over-the-top spirit of the cliche's they are playing. Rodriguez too brings his entire cinematic bag of tricks to bear on a grade-zilch horror movie parody. By itself, it's entertaining, but along with Tarantino's work, makes "Grindhouse" a one of a kind must-see!

Paul Schrader's film is an elegy for a life, a thoughtful character study, a surprisingly moving thriller. Willem Dafoe stars as John LeTour, a 40-year-old delivery boy for a high class drug dealer named Ann (Susan Sarandon). Their clients range from the slick but sleazy Swiss man Tis Brooke (Victor Garber) to the lonely, pathetic slob who never leaves his apartment. John has been talking about leaving the business for years, and is now on the cusp of a change: Ann has been saving up to invest in a new cosmetics business and get out of the drug game for good. They are former junkies turned dealers who never planned this line of work for themselves - this stuff just happens. John gets a wake-up call of sorts when he runs into an old flame, Marianne (Dana Delaney), who has been clean for five years and just wants to stay that way. She's not too keen on being around John, though her sister (Jane Adams) and their dying mother still speak of him fondly. Soon, she is reluctantly drawn back toward John like a moth to a flame; will she get burned? There's a sort of a plot involving a detective investigating a drug-involved murder of an honor student in the park, but this film is really about an astonishingly introspective, astrology-inspired, New Age drug dealer who doesn't want his life, has made tenative plans for an alternative future, and just wants to find a way out. Dafoe, tall and gaunt with a face like a skeleton embodying the just the tiniest hint of lasting flesh, embodies this character from the inside-out. Paul Schrader, who wrote and directed, considers this the third in a series of films he's made about alienated night workers. He calls them his "Man in a Room" films because they all involve men who, isolated, must sit or stand in a room and prepare to face the world: Travis Bickle posing in front of the mirror in Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" (1976), which Schrader wrote; Richard Gere getting dressed and contemplating life as a male escort in "American Gigolo" (1980) which Scrader wrote and directed; and now Dafoe, writing page after endless page in journal after journal about how much he wishes he wasn't in the life he's found himself in, and how desperately he wants to get out. "Someone once told me when a drug dealer starts keeping a journal, it's time to get out," John reflects early on. Maybe that someone was right.

Martin Scorsese's best work often deals with crime, with the tension between multiple identities (the public and the private persona), and with moral quagmires. That his newest film, a remake of 2004's Hong Kong action drama "Infernal Affairs", should take on no less than all of these qualities is a sign that he is at the top of his game. Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio are a couple of South Boston natives who grew up on opposite sides of the track (though only one of them came from the wrong one, precisely). Damon is a mob protégé undercover in the State Police Department and DiCaprio is William Costigan, Jr., a police cadet hand-picked out of the Academy to join the ranks of vile, Irish mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson, in a career high performance!). Scorsese reteams here with great collaborators Thelma Schoonmaker (editor), Michael Ballhaus (cinematographer), and his own brilliant sense of music supervision (he scores his films like no other!). Cut within an inch of its life to keep pace with an often hyperkinetic camera, as well as some choice bits of source music (including "Shipping Up to Boston" by The Dropkick Murphys), Scorsese's latest crime epic ranks near his best.

Bryan Singer's film is a neo-noir-ish heist thriller with modern sensibilities, a darkly comedic jigsaw puzzle, a complex, involving and unnerving labyrinth in which you can find yourself lost, potentially cheated by a twist ending, and still come out entertained. The film opens with a mysterious, shadowy figure descending some stairs on a dock in San Pedro and apparently shooting a man head-on with a gun. Flash forward and it appears that on that very dock that night, 26 men died for $91 million dollars worth of dope that was never found. There is a police inquiry involving a too clever by half, crippled thief named Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). He is telling cops about his four fellow "notorious" colleagues and the truck loaded with stripped gun parts, the disappearance of which outside of Queens first led to them appearing in the same lineup. His partners in crime are McManus (Stephen Baldwin), a wild-eyed and unpredictable marksman; Hockney (Kevin Pollack), a wise-ass low level thug working in a garage; Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), an old friend of McManus who nobody can understand through his bizarrely thick accent; and Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), an Irish alleged criminal turned businessman who has become the Jean Valjean (or Moby Dick) to Detective Kujan's (Chazz Palminteri) Inspector Javert (or Ahab). Kujan has pursued Dean Keaton to this very day, convinced that he is still a crook. He may be right, as it appears that Verbal and his four comrades in illegality banded together after the lineup for first one job, then another, managing to form quite a little team of thieves. Soon, a mystery begins to rear its ugly head. Seems that Verbal and his team were approached by a lawyer named Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite) and he represented one Keyser Soze, a mysterious and shadowy underworld figure with the reputation of a "psycho f---ed up butcher." Who is Keyser Soze? That's the question at the center of this remarkable sophomore feature by director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie. They first teamed up for the little seen independent thriller "Public Access" (1993). Together, they have crafted an intense, deeply involving and hypnotic thriller with rich and original takes on familiar archetypal characters, hip Tarantinoan dialogue, and a plot which may pull one too many rugs out from under itself in the end, but you still can't deny you were entertained. The performances manage to embody what the characters represent while remaining fiercely original, unique and memorable. Kevin Spacey is great as Verbal, the "Man with the Plan" who guides us through the labyrinthine plot to the best of his ability; remarkably, we are never lost when we're in his hands. Byrne is great as the proverbial crooked guy gone straight, nevertheless remaining the passionate pursuit of his cop adversary. I also greatly enjoyed supporting work from Benicio Del Toro, Peter Greene, Kevin Pollack, Stephen Baldwin, Giancarlo Esposito, Pete Postlethwaite and Dan Hedaya. They are all spot-on in their portrayals of characters who live in a sort of heightened reality version of an underworld. The plot is a complex, absorbing maze with Verbal as our guide, and if at the end our hands close on (somewhat) empty air - hey, at least you had fun. One of the year's best films.

David Slade directs Brian Nelson's two-character study, a wicked psychological thriller. At the film's center is a game of sexually-related oneupsmanship, this time between a twisted young woman and the photographer (twice her age) she meets online and agrees to go home with after seeing each other face to face in a coffee bar. Ellen Page (previously unknown to me; she went on to star in Jason Reitman's "Juno," which was my favorite film of 2007) is brilliant as the disturbed (yet sympathetic) young lady who is convinced that this older man (Patrick Wilson of "Little Children") has molested young women in the past and that she is just the girl to turn the tables and punish him for it. The film teeters back and forth in perpetual ambiguity throughout as to whether he's guilty or not, and if so - of what? Well-filmed on a tiny budget, this could easily be done as a two-character play and would be just as mesmerizing on stage as it is, kinetically, on the silver screen. Disturbing and thought-provoking, skirting exploitation without ever diving right in, this is one of the most devisive and brilliant films of the year.

Kevin Smith's third feature is a step up from the crude but hilarious "Clerks" (1994) and the just plain crude "Mallrats" (1995). Ben Affleck stars as Holden McNeil, a New Jersey comic book artist who is the co-creator of "Bluntman and Chronic," a cult success based on the exploits of Jay and Silent Bob as superheroes. His partner is Banky (Jason Lee), who is his BFFL, and watches his back - perhaps more than either of them realize. One night, Holden and Banky are invited to a bar by the black militant (and homosexual) Hooper X (a hilarious Dwight Ewell, who dispenses some of the most sense in the film), a fellow comic book artist who is joined on the minority panel by Alyssa Jones (an effervescent Joey Lauren Adams). Holden is almost automatically smitten with Alyssa, unaware that his illusions will soon be shattered. When Hooper (on Alyssa's behalf) invites Holden to a club to hang out with Alyssa, he discovers what may keep them apart - she's a lesbian. Their friendship, despite this, grows along with the potential for romance, and jealousy of sorts from Banky. This powder keg of a situation boils down to a brilliant, intense scene where Holden must lay his cards out on the table and make his feelings known to both his best friend and his new gal-pal, and some heart-wrenching decisions must be made. Smith graduates here to a heretofor unimaginable level of maturity and thoughtfulness, while still maintaining the same "quality" of crassness that made his earlier works so oddly endearing. This film is sweet, smart and hilarious. Affleck was never more funny and charming than in this film, and Adams shoulda been a star on the basis of this performance. This is a gem.

Writer-director Todd Solondz quickly gained a notorious reputation for this film, a darkly hilarious and brutally honest ensemble film, a mosaic about three sisters and their parents, neighbors and significant others living in suburban New Jersey. Jane Adams is Joy Jordan, a part-time telephone sales worker who writes songs on her guitar and seeks love in all the wrong places. The film opens when she breaks up with her co-worker Andy (Jon Lovitz) in a crowded restaurant. He "curses" her, hoping she has a miserable life. His curse may actually have worked, given what happens to Joy's family: her parents (Louise Lasser and Ben Gazzara) have fallen out of love and are suddenly getting separated after 40-some years of marriage. Meanwhile, her sister Trish (Cynthia Stevenson, continuing somewhat the type she played in "Home for the Holidays") supposedly "has it all" but is married to a psychiatrist, Bill, (Dylan Baker) who is, in fact, a closet peodophile, having fantasies about gunning down entire parks with an AK-47. One of his clients is Allen (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an overweight man who works with computers and has a penchant for making obscene phone calls to strangers. One of the strangers he's fascinated with is the third sister, Helen (Laura Flynn Boyle), a "sordid exploitation artist" who writes much reknowned books of poetry with titles like "Rape at Twelve." She is curiously taken by Alan's voice and sexual promises, but he is sought after by the overweight loner (Camryn Manheim) who had an interesting run-in recently with the door man Pedro. Meanwhile, Bill is developing unhealthy feelings for boys in his son's class, and Joy is trying to change her life for the better by being a teacher to immigrants, including the Russian thief-turned-cab driver named Vlad (Jared Harris), who she falls for. 'Round and 'round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. Solondz made a splash on the Sundance circuit with his first real feature "Welcome to the Dollhouse" (1996). This is a much more painful, yet funny, harsh but true, human portrait of what lurks under the suburban facade - David Lynch would be proud. It's next to impossible to describe how this film works, but it does. Those who think Solondz is exploiting his controversial material or that he doesn't care for his characters would be mistaken. We don't just laugh at their situations (the comedy here is like walking a tightrope), we actually care about these people - and so does Solondz. It's like Helen tells Joy near the film's end - "We're not laughing at you, we're laughing with you." Of course, her response: "But I'm not laughing..."

NOTE: The film was originally NC-17 and rather than edit his film, Solondz surrendered the rating and released it "unrated," weathering the brunt of box office backlash.

Writer-director Quentin Tarantino's very good second half of the 190 minute exploitation double bill "Grindhouse" was released separately on DVD, and is longer and just as uneven as it was before. The film consists itself, of two halves: First, a group of cocky and pot-seeking young 'thangs in Austin, Texas are targeted at a bar by a mystery man in a black car adorned by a lightning bolt print on the hood and a creepy silver duck ornament. The mystery man is Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell, in typical Tarantino career reinvention mode), a murderous sociopath with a real hate on for all women, seemingly. The first group of girls is highlighted by the gorgeous and intriguingly Brooklyn(?)-accented Vanessa Ferlito and the monotone and fairly bland Sydney Tamiia Poitier (yes, Sidney's daughter!). This stretch is dialogue heavy, culminating in a BRILLIANT car crash sequence set to a little known 70s/80s punk song (there's even a monologue about its origins). Tarantino loves him some talking, so if an initial feeling of deja vu comes over you during the second half, don't fret: Stuntman Mike decides to target a new set of girls - Rosario Dawson, stuntwoman Zoe Bell (as herself; she was Uma Thurman's stand-in for KILL BILL), and Tracie Thoms (of RENT). These girls are tougher, seeking danger even before the "Death Proof" car reaches their tailpipe, and the violent, high-octane revenge-filled climax is exhilirating and satisfying. Stay for the ending credits - just for the great April March song and cutaway inserts!

The Wachowski Brothers' directorial debut is a visually dazzling, stunningly plotted, labyrinthine neo-noir with style to spare. Gina Gershon is Corky, the man-ish lesbian who just got out of prison for "redistribution of wealth" and who has begun a job fixing up a condo in a nice mob-run building. Her next door neighbors are Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), a violent money launderer from mob middle-management, and Violet (Jennifer Tilly), his sexy mistress. From almost the moment they meet, Violet has her eyes on Corky, intrigued and, perhaps attracted. Can they be together? It certainly seems that's a viable possibility when Violet gets it in her head to steal $2 million of the mob's money from her boyfriend, framing him for the lost cash. Or maybe they could blame it on Caesar's poor dumb mob adversary (Christopher Meloni). Either way, will this end with Violet running away, and Corky in tow? The film is the writing-directing debut of Andy and Larry Wachowski, a couple of Chicago natives who have a densely plotted and sort of ingenious twist on genre conventions on their hands here, coupled with a pocketful of style. Tilly and Gershon are incredibly erotic and likable as the young couple who could just make their dreams come true. The film's screenplay is labyrinthine, occasionally veering into dark comedy, always keeping you guessing. Bill Pope's cinematography is breathtakingly inventive, sometimes classical, occasionally hyperkinetic. That, combined with razor-sharp and sometimes witty editing, makes this one of the year's best films.

NOTE: The unrated version runs 109 minutes on DVD. The Wachowskis would go on to write and direct the "Matrix" trilogy and "Speed Racer" (2008).

Michael Winterbottom's lovely, sad, beautiful portrait of working-class lives in South London is a deeply moving slice of life. Nadia (the perpetually lovely Gina McKee) is a waitress at a SoHo cafe seeking love in all the wrong places - mostly through ill-advised personals ads (including one that gets her a date with a jerk played by Stuart Townsend). She has two sisters: Debbie (Shirley Henderson), a hairdresser and single mother who periodically leaves her son with her no-account husband Dan (Ian Hart) so she can cavort around her salon with strange men; and Molly (Molly Parker of TV's "Deadwood"), an alarmingly pregnant woman prone to strange dreams whose husband Eddie (John Simm) is on the cusp of quitting his job. These three young women are the spawn of two aging and resentful parents, Bill (Jack Shepherd) and Eileen (Kika Markham) - he is trying to fix a car in front of their house, she is forever being tortured by the barking from the dog next door and calling her husband pathetic for, among other things, ignoring it. Then there's the one couple you begin to think might be sort of happy: Darren (Enzo Cilenti) and Melanie (Sarah-Jane Potts). They're newlyweds, and we gradually learn that he is the estranged son of the family who left years ago - we sense because his mother may have driven him to it. Finally, there's Franklyn (David Fahm), a painfully shy young black man next door who seeks privacy and companionship, is the son of Bill and Eileen's neighbor and may have his sights set on Nadia. The debut screenplay by Laurence Coriat doesn't have a plot per say, but merely circles through these lives over a four-day Guy Fawkes weekend during a rainy November. The cast is first-rate, with Gina McKee ("Naked," "Croupier") as the heart and soul of the piece. Her Nadia is a lovely creature, smiling and crying in almost equal measure, lovely doing either. Her search for "friendship...and possible romance" is at the center of the film. Henderson is cheeky and saucy as the young mother, with Parker more emotionally fragile as the pregant young wife. Although the idea of starting with three sisters and breaking off into the lives of the characters around them has been done before to great effect (Todd Solondz's "Happiness" and Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters"), Coriat's story is to a rather different purpose; indeed, in its endeavors to find the drama in everyday lives, it may remind some of Robert Altman's "Nashville" (1975) or "Short Cuts" (1993), as well as Paul Thomas Anderson's Altman-esque mosaical epic "Magnolia" (1999). There's nothing profoundly unique about these lives, but that makes them all the more human and, thus, universal. Michael Winterbottom is a filmmaker becoming rapidly famous on the world stage ("Jude," "Welcome to Sarajevo," "24 Hour Party People", "The Claim") who never sticks to one genre or type of film, but always pays a keen, almost documentary-esque attention to the details of the lives of his subjects. Working here in super-16mm (blown up to 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen), Winterbottom occasionally simply follows characters (even inviting a glance from an extra or two on the seemingly busy London streets which don't appear to have been blocked off for filming), sometimes hides his cameras in real locations to achieve a sense of the actual flavor of his characters' surroundings, always observing and probing these characters' lives with intense interest. The film, set to a lovely and insistent piano and strings score by Michael Nyman, draws us deep into these lives; we feel for them, we empathize, we care. One of the year's very best films.