Really? Four of our picks for the year’s best movies were summer popcorn flicks, and two of those were testosterone-pumped superhero adventures? How does Re:Generator’s staff sleep at night? We sleep just fine, thanks. It just so happens that these cinematical selections transcend the season in which they arrived at theaters, as intelligent and spellbinding as anything to see wide release in December. As for the rest of our choices, we were able to derive satisfaction from them despite the noticeable absence of adorable robots, playboy billionaires or homicidal clowns.
Director Gus Van Sant dives into the mainstream with Milk, his best movie in over a decade. Based on the last years of gay rights activist Harvey Milk, this film not only captures the essence of the man, but the essence of the times – both then (1970s) and now. The result is engaging, entertaining, even inspiring. In the title role, Sean Penn gives an exuberant performance, all smiles and charisma. Yes, you read correctly: “Sean Penn” and “smiles” were mentioned in the same sentence. Undeniably a great actor, Penn has as many detractors as defenders. Milk is bound to bring him new fans. Not to be overlooked are Josh Brolin, James Franco, and Diego Luna, who each hold their own in a movie that features the dynamic Penn in almost every scene. There is wonderful ensemble work here.
1970s San Francisco, and the nascent gay movement, are perfectly presented. Van Sant palpably evokes a time and place without falling into the cliches of a lesser filmmaker. Heavy use of archival footage adds to the impact. (When is the last time anyone even thought of Anita Bryant? Yet here, via newsreel, she is almost a supporting character.) Ultimately, a film of this nature brings two things to mind: how much things have changed, and how much they haven’t. The passing of Proposition 8 is a reminder that there is much to be done. Discrimination is still being written into the American lawbook. Milk may be preaching to the choir, but what a moving, motivating, and uplifting sermon it is. —Thom Ayres
Probably a movie that has the oddest trio ever starring in it, Tropic Thunder surprised me a bit. I knew it was going to be funny, but I didn’t know just how much. Robert Downey, Jr. is amazingly hilarious in his second blockbuster of the year, making a good comeback for him after last years Zodiac which I hadn’t seen until recently.
Jack Black and Ben Stiller are also surprisingly funny, as I didn’t think I would be seeing them in anything humourous for a long time (aside from Be Kind, Rewind for Black). But lo, they astound.
This movie is funny when it shouldn’t be. Which is good, because it never takes itself seriously, and with three men who are sharing the starring role it takes off ridiculously well. —Sam Pagan
I totally forgot I saw In Bruges! It was good now that I think of it. And I usually don’t like that guy! What’s his name? The guy who used to bone Britney but denied it? Um… I always get him confused with Russell Crowe. I think they’ve both been accused of beating people. Whatever. —xtine
Midgets and cocaine have never been more funny. —Sam Pagan
Wall-E is perhaps the cutest animated motion pictures out there that is good for adults and children a like. There is so much character in one little robot (and his bug friend) that it’s hard to believe that you can relate to him – but you do! The subtle social commentary is a nice touch too, though it was highly criticized by some people as being “anti-fat,” which is not the case at all.
To these people I would like to say, THIS MOVIE IS NOT ABOUT YOU. This is about a fictional Earth and its inhabitants that trashed their planet and left it for 700 years, becoming so dependent on the technology around them that they are barely even aware of their surroundings. As proclaimed by one passenger of the Axiom whose monitor gets shut off, “I didn’t know we had a pool!” despite having been on the large luxury space craft their whole lives.
This is about being aware of the world around you, interacting with others and also the fact that just because you’re little doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference. Anyone who has seen The Incredibles and then saw Wall-E has to agree that the latter is awe-inspiring in so many more ways. —Sam Pagan
Have you ever noticed how bad superhero films can be? Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely some great movies about superheroes out there, but many of them tend towards the level of “ungodly suckitude.” Marvel Comics is especially plagued by this. They screwed up The Hulk, they ruined the Fantastic Four, they butchered more than one Punisher, and did irreparable damage to countless other franchises throughout the 80s and 90s. Even with brief flashes of greatness like Spiderman and X-Men, they still managed to muck up another Fantastic Four in this decade. Have no fear, though, the good movie streak isn’t over. Marvel has their own studio now and the potential for great films is much increased.
Take Iron Man, for instance. Here you have a summer film about a superhero, and by God if it isn’t a great watch. Tony Stark and Robert Downey, Jr. are now wedded in my mind permanently, and unfortunately for Tony that means he was picked up in a hotel off Highway 111 in Palm Springs for drugs and hookers. Or maybe that’s not so unfortunate. I don’t know; I don’t make the rules. Anyway, Iron Man. Rent it or buy it, you’re in for a great couple of hours of cinema. —Ryan Jovian
Finally a classic rampaging monster that the U.S. can call its own. Japan has the whole Godzilla franchise, and now we have Cloverfield! This movie was a lot of fun for me. Sure the main characters were annoying hipsters and the home movie camera style could get a little confusing sometimes, but it’s all about the monster! He’s just a baby, he’s disoriented and lost and wants his mom, that’s all. He doesn’t know any better, and so if he crushes a few buildings and lets loose a bunch of freaky tick-crab-things onto the unsuspecting masses, it’s just because he’s scared. Give him a break, guys.
I actually cared a little for the characters too. I mean, they’re in mortal peril during a bizarre monster invasion and all they want to do is stick together because they’re friends. Aww, friendship.
The ending is especially great because it leaves everything open to interpretation. Which meaaaans – SEQUEL! Hopefully. Hey, if you’re into horror movies or thrillers, or action, or scary but cute monsters, Cloverfield delivers. —Sam Pagan
Has there been a Hollywood comedy released in the last few years that’s actually funny and isn’t in some way connected to superproducer Judd Apatow? Go on, rack your brain if you must, but you already know the answer. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the latest comedy unable to escape the mirthful clutches of Apatow, presents a situation anyone can identify with: You’re a musician who looks like Jason Segal and composes music for the procedural television show your live-in girlfriend (Kristen Bell) stars on. After five years of being together, she dumps you. To recover your wits, you go on a vacation to Hawaii, only to end up on the same island, indeed, the same hotel that she and her new libertine rock star boyfriend (Russell Brand) are staying at. Truly, a tale as old as time. Hilarity, it almost goes without saying, ensues, ensuring that Forgetting Sarah Marshall isn’t the project that kills the goose that lays all of those golden cinematic eggs Apatow must be hiding in an undisclosed location. —Robert Starvation
If you thought Tropic Thunder, In Bruges, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall wasn’t enough humour for you, then you were in luck this year. Run, Fatboy, Run is not only a comedy but also a touching story of love lost – and then found again. Simon Pegg is the new Rowan Atkinson with none of that Mr. Bean crap, and shares screen time with that guy who looks like Neil Gaiman. No Nick Frost unfortunately, but I’m sure they have something up their Union Jack sleeves to remedy this. Run, Fatboy, Run needs no introduction, it needs more successors. —Sam Pagan
There’s always at least one straggler of a film, released so close to the new year as to avoid making years end lists, and only really gaining a widespread American audience in early January. 2007’s almost-slipped through-the-cracks entry (on December 25, no less) comes courtesy of the religious autocrats in Iran, without whom Marjane Satrapi’s illustrated – then animated – memoir would merely be another insightful and irreverent bildungsroman. But the pathos of apprehended autonomy elevates Persepolis into that rarest of films that can make you laugh, cry and scream in outrage – all at the same time. —Robert Starvation
There’s no use trying to extricate the circumstances surrounding Heath Ledger’s untimely demise from The Dark Knight. Knight, the blockbuster followup to 2006’s stunning franchise reboot Batman Begins, is conjoined to it now, so that any viewing will inevitably be colored through the prism of his tragedy. The impact is calcuable: Ledger’s thesbianism is, not entirely without merit, elevated; at the same time, his corpse is still too fresh not to lead to meta moments, where the viewer is pulled out of the film and into the murky realms of pop psychology and tabloid speculation. Ledger’s death has one additional appalling effect: it takes attention away from the glut of noteworthy performances in the film, from the heavy lifting by the likes of Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal down to the bit parts.
While the cast certainly deserves laurels, it is to director Christopher Nolan’s credit that The Dark Knight is a taut and intense thriller, Heat with technologically advanced capes and villains with outlandish facial scars. The script, penned by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, is complex and intelligent – it may have struck the perfect balance between thought and action, bypassing the dichotomy proposed by the nameless narrator of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground. What other movie nearing the astronomical profit margins of Titanic answered a longstanding philosophical quandary, hmm?
One cannot write of the The Dark Knight without noting Christopher Nolan’s deft visual acumen. Gotham City, by virtue of its on-location shoot in Chicago, has never felt so substantial, so gritty and so grim. Nolan’s strategy for his work on the Batman series has always been to convolute the distinctions between the comic book universe and reality, and his filmmaking, by and large, suspends disbelief. What enabled the Joker to be utterly menacing to audiences, Harvey Dent’s downfall to be a pure Grecian plummet and the story as a whole to grip the imagination so forcefully is the unsettling notion that this could happen. No society is completely immune from corruption, violence, vigilantism or madmen.
The Dark Knight is a parable for our dark time, when effervescent gloom clouds our senses and the faint glimmer of hope is all that sustains us. It hit a cultural nerve that will throb for some time to come. But more than anything, it is an amazing – and unforgettable – masterpiece. —Robert Starvation
