10. The Savages
Tamara Jenkins delivers the most painful comedy of the year with three of the best performances of the year from Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as the somewhat estranged brother and sister who need to step up to take responsibility for their severly estranged dad, played by Phillip Bosco.  So bitter… so sweet.

9. Superbad
I Am McLovin. The most significant generational piece of the Apatow oeuvre, directed by Greg Mottola and written by real high school buddies Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg.  Kids haven’t told it like it is – including their ignorance and fears – in a long time.  And as often is the case in Apatow films, he manages to include cross-generational references that make everyone look the idiot… while they laugh up a storm. 

8. Lars and the Real Girl – The heart film of the year that all too many think is a dirty sex romp.  This is a movie about love and community and surviving to love another day.  Ryan Gosling leads a company of actors who are letter perfect, down to Bianca, the real doll who lives upstairs in his brother’s house while her existence allows Lars to move forward in the Grimm fairy tale of his life.   There are those who try to rationalize the film, and the frustration can be immense… but only half as strong as the execs who have seen the film play like gangbusters with audiences only to fail to find an audience at the multiplex.

7. Ratatouille
Brad Bird threw this struggling project at Pixar together in record time and delivered a film that is both great for families and a home run for adults who share a passion for the better things in life with The Rat.  It’s almost like it is a great programmer from a top artist who was brought in to make the thing work a little better.  Ages like a fine wine.

6. Day Night Day Night
Julia Loktev’s intimate take of a woman choosing to take a city’s life in her hands.  Why is she doing it?  Who is she doing it for?  How could she?  We never quite know… Loktev lets up know only that there is a human being sitting inside the golem that we hold in our minds.  A tiny piece, but one of the most provocative and evocative of the year.

5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Schnabel, Kaminski, Harwood, and Amalric are just a few of the key collaborators in this artwork of absolute mastery, challenging our senses, our movie viewing habits, and our emotions in the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, who finds beauty in the most difficult of situations for a person to imagine.

4. No Country for Old Men
The Brothers Coen strike again with a tale about mortality set inside a chase film with spiritual overtones.  I am still trying to figure out why people are upset or arguing over the last scenes of the film.  Maybe they were hoping that the film was something else.  But they get a work that both embraces and rejects classic film ideas and in which the themes become clearer in places they seemed not to be at all on first viewing.  A keeper.

3. Michael Clayton
George Clooney has been trying to make a great movie about the moral plight of the successful individual for years now… and finally found the right script from Bourne scribe Tony Gilroy, who does some very strong work in his first foray behind the camera (with a hand from the great Robert Elswit).  Not only does Clooney get his best career role to play, but he is given award-worthy support from two great actors on Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson.  A lot goes on in this film, including some time jumping.  But the theme presents itself in time… and reaches deep into the soul of anyone who is challenged by their work and life to stray from their best selves.  A movie that will keep ringing in the ears of Americans for a very long time.

2. Lake of Fire
Simply the definitive documentary on the subject of abortion.  Tony Kaye made the film over many years with his own money, grabbing interviews here and yon, and putting together the stories of a number of people, putting a true human face on an issue that is, in its detail, too profoundly effecting to comprehend when thinking of it as simply political.  Comparable to Shoah’s take on the Jewish Holocaust.  A painful watch, but an undeniable must.

1. I’m Not There
Todd Haynes, co-writing with Oren Moverman, delivers a film as challenging as any of those more closely held to the bosom of critics, but with far more range, complexity, and meaning.  On the surface, a story about Bob Dylan’s life, as told by six sides of his personality.  But Haynes’ use of Dylan covers as a score and the interweaving of his emotional constructs takes the whole enterprise to another level… not unlike what I imagine a “good trip” to be. 

I’m Not There offers the strongest offering of what seems to be a major theme of the year, men looking for the answer to who and what they are supposed to be in this modern world.  Whether it is the boys of Superbad, flailing about and talking more than doing, or Michael Clayton finding himself challenged to a higher purpose by his mentor who just can’t be a part of the machine anymore, or Tommy Lee Jones deciding whether he wants to play with death the way a young man can’t seem to resist, or a rat who is the last “person” who belongs in a kitchen, but who can’t stop himself from pursuing his passion, the best movies of the year look into our souls.  And I’m Not There doesn’t fight the duality so much as embrace it and care for it, even as it feels the sting of confusion. 

I’m Not There also includes one of the very best performances of the year, by Cate Blanchett, who comes to embody the sway and swash of Dylan just as he was trying to put words to the conversation about what all that music really meant.   Blanchett is more Dylan than Dylan and if she doesn’t take home the Supporting Actress Oscar, there is no justice.

All in all, a pretty great six months at the movies, with fresh, rising directors and writers, who are making up in quality what they lack in quantity.  With movies like There Will Be Blood as the misses, it must be a very good time for the art indeed.

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