After Blue Ruin, Green Room serves as the second half of an awesome one-two punch. As with the Blue Ruin Jeremy Saulnier constructs a terrifying predicament for his heroes, and orchestrates an intense adventure of escape within his pre-constructed scenario. In Blue Ruin it was the quid-pro-quo acts of revenge against two warring families, here it’s the more intimate and constrained scenario of a punk band under siege in a neo-nazi compound. Saulnier’s innate feel of realism puts the audience effectively in the moment-to-moment thrills of the characters.



The thrill of this picture is the unconventional stylistic take on a what probably seemed on paper a conventional script. As written by Noah Oppenheimer, the story of Jackie, tells like procedural events of Jackie Kennedy in the days after the JFK assassination. Some non-linear segments, flashforwards and flashbacks can give the appearance of an unconventional film, but everything we would need to see from this period of time we do see. For this reason, the film is thoroughly satisfying. But it’s Pablo Lorrain’s vision which elevates the material into something more than a good script. Lorrain’s work in recreating period detail and merging different media and archival footage elegantly in the Oscar nominated film No is applied directly to Jackie. The visual and auditory design of the film is stunning and transports the audience to 1963 with ease and grace.



The familiar is made fresh from the hot Damien (Whiplash) Chazelle. The thrill of Whiplash was Chazelle’s claustrophobic intensity and laser-specific focus into the mind of his artist-alter ego. La La Land is the largest canvas he could possibly play on. Treading in the musical genre taking place over several years, against the backdrop of Hollywood, the music industry, and Los Angeles the city of dreams. The familiar ground is the artistic pressure of the Hollywood lifestyle. All About Eve, or A Star is Born seem more appropriate comparables than the traditional Hollywood musical. The anchor of the picture isn’t necessarily the musical set pieces, which admittedly still don’t ever match up to the best of Hollywood’s past. Gosling and Stone try their best, but they are no Rogers/Astaire, Garland/Rooney or Kelly/Caron. The picture succeeds because of the agonizing frustration which results from the strain on their idealized relationship and resonates on a level rarely achieved even by the best of Hollywood musical standards.



Tragic and devastating. Kenneth Lonergan’s original script, directed with working class humble honesty, puts his ordinary characters through the ringer. Weirdo Casey Affleck is perfectly cast as the unlikeable and reluctant social misfit forced into become surrogate father to his nephew, and in the process is forced to reconcile his own tragedies of his past. The heavy loaded drama admirably mixes in disarming comedy resulting in a perfect concoction of palatable tragedy.


Barry Jenkins’ already massively-celebrated impressionistic memoir of his own youth is as graceful and moving as proclaimed by most critics. Jenkins eschews narrative convention at the same time retooling familiar elements of coming age stories. Jenkins’ hero Chiron grows up in Miami amidst the temptation of drug lifestyle and frustrated by his mom’s own crack habit. An unlikely mentor arises in a drug dealer to become his surrogate father. The evolution of character from child to youth to adult immediate recalls Boyhood. The gentle approach to the often grim subject sparkles with inspiration and innovation in every frame, even when the Jenkins is forced to rely on those familiar coming of age tropes.




This delirious and inspired sequel to the 2014 hit film enriches the beautifully conceived characters of the first film. Seth Rogan and company already had perfect comedic concept to work with in the first film – an anxious couple with a new baby moves into a new house only to discover their neighbour is a raucous frat house. Here, the same characters are back, except the frat house is a sorority helmed by a trio of misfit students eager to create the same kind of college experience as their male counterparts. The chemistry of Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne carries through in this sequel, same with the valuable b-player presence of Ike Baronholtz and Carlo Gallo as their dufus best friends. The trio of Chloe Grace Moretz, Kersey Clemons and Beanie Feldstein make admirable comic adversaries, but this picture is Zac Efron’s whose comic chops blossom like never before.



Matt Johnson’s scrappy fake moon landing movie bristles with low budget ingenuity. While the production tales of the filmmakers sneaking into the real NASA to film segments of the film under their own noses tends to lead the discussion of the picture, the film is an impressively complex arrangement of thriller-genre elements, deceptively clever character development and truly awesome combination of reenacted period detail and archival footage.



The story of a shipwrecked man on an South Pacific deserted island and the strange but life affirming relationships he forges while on the island. This French/Belgian Studio Ghibli-influenced animated weeper submits itself to the constraint of having no dialogue. The film elegantly lifts itself from the self-conscious to something magical and enchanting, however desperately the filmmakers strive for this effect. You have to give to the filmmaker for effective pulling the heartstrings of the audience so effortlessly.



The release of a Terence Davies film nowadays has the same of privileged anticipation we used to get from Terrence Malick. Despite claims in the media of Davies as the great living British filmmaker, he’s relatively unknown, even within cineaste circles. Sunset Song is Davies’ biggest film, based on the revered Scottish novel by Cedric Gibbons which depicted the 20 year journey of a lowly farm girl making a life for itself amid the hardships of rural working class life. For those familiar with the Davies-style, all the visual and narrative hallmarks of the master are in play and elevated to mythic cinematic heights. Comparisons to the work of John Ford are front and centre, but it’s no doubt a gorgeous Terence Davies picture furthering the already impressive body of work of the master.

Honourable mentions:

It was tough to exclude Hell or High Water, a crackjack heist thriller which deceptively turns into a thought-provoking and tragic family drama. Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals was a loony thriller playing in the David Lynch world of visceral violence and eccentric quirky humour. Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some, deceptively proclaimed to be a spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused only to reveal itself another type of metaphysical slacker comedy without a beginning, middle, or end. The morbid curiosity surrounding the story of Christine Chubbock, who committed suicide on camera in the 1970’s was enough to make Antonio Campos’ intense biopic Christine a guilty pleasure. Although barely released theatrically Karyn Kusuma’s The Invitation was an invigorating nail biting chamber drama. Clint Eastwood’s Sully, honoring the humble working class nature of the hero of the Miracle on the Hudson, was effective in its own clinical modesty. Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only the End of the World adds even more flare to his already impressive filmography of stylish suburban shouting matches. And the new franchise starter, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them was surprisingly effective at transplanting the style, tone and thrill of the HP universe to 1920's New York.

David Robert Mitchell’s exercise in horror minimalism masterfully pulls off the best retro movie experience of the year. Much like the resurrection of Mad Max, and 70’s era Star Wars Mitchell deviously recreates the terror of the 70’s/80’s silent stalker character. Mitchell takes inspiration from the hypnotic Yul Bynner/Richard Benjamin walking foot chase in Westworld, Michael Myers' terrifying stalking of Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween I and II and relentless onslaught of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1984 Terminator. Mitchell’s premise is deceptively simple and with nil backstory, his ghostly baddie simply exists without question. If Mitchell painted film with just this brush he’d still have a terrifying picture, but what elevates the film is his pitch perfect depiction of the millennial malaise. Mitchell manages to make the relationships of the four central youngsters as compelling as the genre components. Mitchell’s application of the melancholy tone from the his previous picture Myth of the American Sleepover to his ironclad horror premise is a sublime cinematic marriage.

Ok, Daily Film Dose is not daily any more. It’s not dead, in fact very much alive (in my head). I’ve been it for over 7 years and I’ve never posted an all-time favourite list. And so here it is, for what it’s worth. Ten films that stick to me so vividly and profoundly more than anything else I’ve ever seen.



This film exemplifies everything that is great about John Ford, even more so than any of his revered Westerns. Ford's signature elegant style creates a romantic view of Welsh coal mining family living through turbulent times. Told from the point of view of young Roddy McDowell's character there's a filter of romanticized nostalgia which Ford embellishes with all his cinematic powers. Breathtaking recreation of the town is front and centre. Arguably one of the greatest locations and sets ever built. The coal mine perched atop a hill at the end of the town and the rows of houses which follow down the valley creates Parthenon-like compositional perfection. And those plumes of smoke which linger in distance so perfectly in the frame was all part of Ford’s obsessive design. The film's trump card though is the astonishingly emotional ending, as moving and powerful as anything in Ford's oeuvre and the history of cinema for that matter. To some the film is notable for being the one that bested Orson Welles and Citizen Kane for Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards but How Green Was My Valley is better and I bet Welles would agree.

There are some familiar and unfamiliar titles on this list. Despite the chosen order, I could easily rearrange these films. The fact is, there wasn’t one film that stood out from the rest. Instead, the commonality between all these pictures is a certain 'boldness', often telling familiar stories in unconventional ways, or in the case of Goon and The Hobbit executing its genre to perfection.

I’ve kept the list only dramatic features as I could have populated this list with a number of superlative documentaries – see my top docs at the end of this list.

I should also say that this list did take into consideration other lauded ventures such as Holy Motors, The Master, Les Miserables, Django Unchained, Lincoln, Life of Pi etc. Unfortunately I have not yet seen Zero Dark Thirty or Amour, so in a couple weeks this top ten list might become a top twelve list. But for now, here’s the most memorable films of 2012 from Daily Film Dose:

It’s been a decent but not outstanding year for cinema. There was a lot of very good movies and few, if any, ‘great’ ones. And so, after compiling my 10 best list, it unfortunately results in a series of mostly dark and grisly films about death or other tragedies of some sort. Sorry.

As well, usually I separate my fiction films from documentaries to create two separate lists. But this year there were so many fantastic docs, three in particular that were so memorable, they needed to be included with the others. So here goes:

RESURRECT DEAD: THE MYSTERY OF THE TOYNBEE TILES

This independently produced documentary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, stayed with me for months. It still does. John Foy's procedural conspiracy film attempts to unravel the 20-year-old unsolved mystery of a series of tiles stamped onto the streets of dozens of cities across America, secret coded messages written with a unique artistic penmanship that can be attributed to only one person. Foy creates a magnificently suspenseful and engrossing investigative Sherlock Holmes-worthy mystery following three young men, equally obsessed, as they go about solving the case. He matches Errol Morris for his rigorousness and his ability to parse out information in a clear and dramatic way, but with a sharp sense of humour. This is pure cinematic storytelling at work.

TAKE SHELTER

As a second film, writer/director Jeff Nichols shows remarkable confidence with a story less easily definable than the ‘revenge’ drama of Shotgun Stories. Take Shelter is ambitious, complex and deceptive, the type of film M. Night Shymalan used to make.

I SAW THE DEVIL

A two-and-a-half hour tete-a-tete revenge film, Korean style. Jee-woon Kim takes influence from the Korean landmark genre thriller Old Boy. It’s so grisly, disturbing and relentlessly violent, but it’s something you can’t help but rubberneck your head around to watch.

THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH AUNT DIANE

You may know the story already – the strange case of a seemingly normal, well-adjusted middle-class mom travelling home from the cottage with her two young kids and three nieces. She inexplicably loses her sense of direction and starts speeding the wrong way on the highway before tragically killing eight people, including herself and all but one of her passengers. Under the careful direction of Liz Garbus, Aunt Diane resounds as a fascinating documentary so tragic and confounding it has haunted me ever since.

THE ARTIST

Sure, this isn't news now. And pretty soon French director Michel Hazanavicius's love letter to the silent film era will be over-hyped, but we can't deny that this is a remarkably entertaining film.

SHAME

McQueen's odyssey of a sex addict, while narratively sparse and controlled, is a triumph for its astonishing visceral and emotional power – a technically stylish and emotionally intense experience on par with Black Swan.

LIKE CRAZY

Pitch perfect anti-romance about a long distance relationship plays like Going the Distance made by Michael Winterbottom, presented with a pretension-free hip style from director Drake Doremus.

THE IDES OF MARCH

Don’t let this fascinating, thrilling and wholly thought-provoking new millennium political thriller fall through the cracks. It's a superb character study that ambitiously strives for an arc as grand as The Godfather. In almost half the running time, Clooney crafts a cynical tale of corruption and the effect of career ambition, jealousy and revenge on one’s moral conscience.

TYRANNOSAUR

Paddy Considine's directorial debut is a chronicle of the cycle of abuse in the grand tradition of great British kitchen sink dramas. It’s a deeply emotional story of two lost souls, victims of the cycle of abuse, who find solace with each other from their working class shitholes. But through Peter Mullan’s and Olivia Colman’s superlative performances and mutual chemistry, Considine succeeds in making us want to spend 90 minutes in the lives of these tortured characters.

PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY

Perhaps only Michael Apted's Up series could compare to the effect of Berlinger/Sinofsky's 15-years-in-the-making documentary. This third film surrounding the now famous West Memphis Three case is a triumph, a powerful compendium of all three films combining evidence compiled over the years, which ultimately brought justice to three men wrongly accused.


Honourable Mentions:

Drive - a unique creative collaboration between director Nicholas Winding Refn, Ryan Gosling and composer Cliff Martinez

Moneyball - a surprisingly accessible sports drama about the effect of the science of statistics on the sacred American game

Myth of the American Sleepover - think Dazed and Confused or American Graffiti as made by Gus Van Sant. An under-the-radar winner that signals a new voice in American indie cinema in David Robert Mitchell

Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil - a fun horror comedy with a wicked hook and two great comic performances from Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II - for someone who had given up on this series after the third episode, I was won back by this surprising final chapter, which manages to connect all the previous films for a satisfying and emotional conclusion

Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within - this Brazilian cops and robbers action film, which aspires to have the same epic weight as Michael Mann's Heat, was the highest grossing domestic film of all time in Brazil

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Niels Arden Oplev's version of this story played like a solid David Fincher rip-off. Now we have the real thing, executed with cold, pulpy perfection and everything we wanted to see from this well put together cinematic collaboration

Senna - an uplifting turned tragic documentary about the life of world champion Formula One driver Ayton Senna, who died on the racetrack in 1994.

Bridesmaids - hands down the comedy of the year, featuring the supremely talented Kristin Wiig as both writer and actor.

Chico and Rita

The Unforgettably Forgotten Great and Good Films of 2010

By Blair Stewart

Editor's note: Here's an alternate Best of List from UK-Based DFD contributor Blair Stewart

Happy New Year and all that jazz folks, here's a rundown of 2010's finest slept-on films that unfortunately were wedged between the bluster of "Inception" and the perpetual infernal mechanized horsepoop contraption that is "Twilight: Eclipse". No "Shutter Island" or "Winter's Bone" to be seen here, but plenty of head-scratching and highfalutin cultural snobbery to be had. No "I Am Love" included either, the ending was an embarrassment.


"Machete" dir. by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis
Starring Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Jeff Fahey and Jeff Fahey's sweet-ass mullet

I've despised 90% of Robert Rodriguez's efforts, and after the letdown of "Predators" (great concept dulled by tacky execution), would have happily skipped "Machete" for a long night of sweet F.A. despite Danny Trejo's leathery mug. Thankfully Rodriguez and his editor/co-director Maniquis have taken a highlight of 2007's "Grindhouse" experiment, the 2-minute fake trash trailer of which this film is born, and expanded it into a piss-taking scattershot lampoon of Rodriguez's own body of work. Sometime around a climax of Robert DeNiro channelling Foghorn Leghorn as a US Senator caught on the warpath of Lindsay Lohan in a nun's habit I fell in love with the tastelessness of "Machete", John Waters would have made a logical pick for story consultant if asked. The blowhards involved in the US-Mexico border controversy deserved this lovingly bloody satire, and with his part as DeNiro's greasy hatchet man, I now demand more Jeff Fahey roles in my American mainstream movies. Hell, Fahey in Mexican ones, too.


"Cane Toads: The Conquest" dir. by Mark Lewis
Featuring Cane Toads, Rural Australians

A sequel to the 1988 documentary "Cane Toads: An Unnatural History", the disastrous introduction of the American reptile to Northern Australia becomes a cautionary lesson in man's ecological blunders and decoration for the interviewed weirdos of Oz's hinterlands. As humorous, terrifying, frustrating and educational as losing one's virginity, "Cane Toads" was a Sundance festival hit that at best may yet see a limited release, otherwise Netflix beckons. The 3-D format was used effectively in raising my blood pressure as a solitary toad hopped into the foreground space amongst Queensland's beauty on the cusp of conquer. Then another toad arrived. Then another. And two more. And another one. And three more. And another......


Exit Through the Gift Shop dir. by Banksy
Featuring Banksy and Thierry Guetta

Joining "Catfish" as the other documentary this year to give me pause in questioning its truth, "Exit Through the Gift Shop" was a series of happy accidents (graffiti art fan Thierry Guetta with A.D.D. and O.C.D. records Banksy, the hyped zeitgeist of illegal street art, before gaining more financial success than his mentor, and despite the fact that his art sucks, only for Banksy to become a fine director of Guetta's footage, uh-huh) that resulted in a wildly entertaining film. Whatever the processes required, 2010 was a year in which the non-fiction material ("Collapse", "Restrepo", most of "I'm Still Here") exceeded the fictional work in my admiration. As additional viewing incentive Banksy is a caustic narrating genius and the eye-popping sight of an elephant spray painted burgundy simply must be seen.


"Enter the Void" dir. by Gaspar Noe
Starring Nathaniel Brown and Paz de la Huerta

The acting is mostly atrocious, the story a haberdashery of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" and DMT-laced spliffs, and despite the immense audiovisual acumen of "I Stand Alone" and "Irreversible" notoriety Gaspar Noe isn't the brightest of filmmakers, just the flashiest. Yet "Enter the Void" was an overwhelming experience; a CGI-fireworks merging of Tokyo's electric hum, the free-floating camera crane movement of Kalatozov's "I Am Cuba" with trust-fund carnality that briefly overruled Mckee's screenplay formulas and mixed-marketing tie-in tentpole franchises. Perhaps Paz de la Huerta won over my better judgement, but I'm alright with that. It was a heady trip at the cinema in an otherwise stuffily unmemorable year.


"Chico and Rita" dir. by Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba
Featuring the music of Bebo Valdés, Tito Puente and Charlie Parker

Oh to be young, carefree and lustful in pre-Castro Havana around 1948. Rich Yankee dolts from the brownstone smokestacks are pouring into town for a weekend fling; Cuban superpowers of bebop and mambo are following them out. A roughly animated lark on the high times of Cuban beat in the way-back-when, "Chico and Rita" was predictable and saccharine but it had good tunes and hot sex going on, therefore making it the best date movie possible for anyone anywhere anytime. I have never found turquoise blue as fine a colour as I have while watching this.


"Trash Humpers" dir. by Harmony Korine
Starring Harmony Korine and Rachel Korine

Like a lost VHS tape that escaped from Gary Busey's private snuff collection "Trash Humpers" is off-limits for those of us with decency and good taste. Squalid freaks in old folks masks destroy property and, you know, hump trash, where the overwhelming mood of chaos in 78 minutes created a feeling of dread in me greater than all the cannibal extras in "The Road" could muster. Art gallery owners in Soho and Williamsburg wept.


"Four Lions" dir. by Christopher Morris
Starring Riz Ahmed, Kayvan Novak and Nigel Lindsay

A ballsy flogging of radical fundamentalist hive-thinking and the sorry state of the U.K. in general, "Four Lions" was blessed with superbly funny dialogue when I could understand whatever the hell the Jihadists were saying. A plotline about an incompetent sleeper-cell in the Yorkshires had too much baggage for major North American distributors, despite qualities including Riz Ahmed's excellent lead performance alongside Chris Morris gold-standard in British comedy direction. The idea of a modern farce's last reel concerning the gang's attempt to bomb the London Marathon would be depraved if not for the example set by "Dr. Strangelove" during the Cold War's depths. Some jackasses might be less inclined to publicly blow themselves up under the wilting onslaught of such well-conceived mockery.


"The Illusionist" dir. by Sylvain Chomet
Starring the animated ghost of Jacques Tati

Trading in Gallic whimsy for Gallic melancholy, Sylvain Chomet of "The Triplets of Belleville" adapts an unfinished Jacques Tati script into a hand-drawn torch song for Tati's cinema/vaudeville legacy and the worn cobblestones of Edinburgh. When I have kids I intend to screen this for them as I want them to get a head start on disappointment, heartache and quality foreign films.

For these top ten lists I’ve always ranked them from one to ten. Why? Because that’s how my brain works. And there’s value in knowing what the BEST film of the year is. This year, it’s a different case. There just wasn’t that one film that stood out. As such it's a random order of the top ten. Regardless, here’s 10 fantastic pictures to find and watch and be bedazzled by (click on the title link to find my reviews of each film):

But before we get to the list, I shamefully posted this before seeing David O Russell's glorious and inspiring The Fighter, which makes this a list of 11, not 10.

The Fighter (US, dir. David O Russell)
So let's start with The Fighter, a film about two brothers, one a crack addict former fighter whose sole purpose in life is to see his kid brother achieve what he never did - a championship belt. It's classical cinematic storytelling at it's best, elevated by four stunning performances by the leads - Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams. The film hits those fundamental core feelings, which allows us to put our own lives into the characters as we watch the film, resulting in a deeper more penetrating emotional experience than perhaps all of the films listed below.

Catfish (US, dir. Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost)
I usually don't put documentaries on my top ten list, instead creating a separate list for those. Yet, if there were any film this year which blew me away, took me by surprise, it was theatrical experience of watching Catfish. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and of course I had no knowledge of the film before going in. The publicity people were so secretive, they had two separate press notes, one of which was sealed, not to be opened until after the film. The fact is, Catfish, is the most intriguing and psychologically stimulating film of the year. A story of this new information age, when identities are mallable like characters in a story, or a film.


Buried (Spain, dir. Rodrigo Cortes)
Another Sundance experience. And just about everyone knows the hook of this film. The story of a man trapped inside a coffin buried in the ground. That’s the movie, 90mins of it. And every minute is rivetting. It's filmmaking ofthe highest order, from a first time Spanish filmmaker. But the script (by an American) was strong enough to attract Ryan Reynolds, whose performance is astounding, but sadly will likely not get recognized during awards season. No bother, it proves Reynolds’ chops as an actor.


Let Me In (US, dir. Matt Reeves)
Cries afoul of genre-geeks who idolized the original Swedish film, who forsaw yet another Hollywood bastardization of a great foreign language film. Matt Reeves got the last laugh, delivering a film not only reverent to the original, but frankly, IMHO, better. I wouldn’t have though that possible but it is. The quiet ‘vampire’ story of a young girl bloodsucker befriends a young bullied boy in a small northern California town is remarkably poignant and affecting.


The Social Network (US, dir. David Fincher)
Ya yeah. Not that this film needs any more praise, but it is a terrific film. One of the films that captures the time and place attitude of a current generation – like Easy Rider, or All the President’s Men.


The Wild Hunt (Canada, dir. Alexandre Franchi)
What is this you ask? The Wild Hunt is so devious, so clever it almost defies description. Or at least I’m hestitant to reveal anything about why this film is a masterpiece. Canadian director Alexandre Franchi puts us in the weird cultish world of LARPers (Live Action Role Playing), you know those Dungeon’s and Dragon’s players who inhabit their characters, dress up like knights and pretend fight each other on weekend retreats. Within this world Franchi crafts both a lovely romantic comedy and horrifically suspensful melodrama, mixing humour and horror in equal measure and sending us on the most intense journey of the year this side of Black Swan.


Black Swan (US. dir. Darren Aronofsky)
Black Swan is indeed the most intense, viscerally penetrating film of the year. A trippy ‘experience’, more than anything. It’s a particularly salacious and contrived plot fitted to meet Aronofksy’s sensabilities as an American ‘enfant terrible’. If you've seen his 90’s films Pi or Requiem For a Dream, you kind of know exactly where this film is going from the outset. So in many ways, there’s not much surprise in the end, but the joy of Black Swan is the ride that Aronofsky takes you on to get there. He’s at the peak of his filmmaking powers in this one.


Tales From the Golden Age (Romania, dir. Cristian Mungiu, Hanno Höfer, Razvan Marculescu, Constantin Popescu, Ioana Uricaru
This film seems to have been around forever, a Cannes premiere in 2008, the film finally got it's North American release this year. It's a rare anothogy film that work, a Romanian one directed by four of the country’s emerging filmmakers, but really commanded and supervised by the celebrated 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days auteur Cristian Mungiu. While that film was a harrowing, dark and disturbing look into the illegal abortion network of communist era Romania, Tales is a humourous antidote to that film. A five film compendium of urban myths from the oppressive era of Nicolai Ceauscescu, a Stalin-esque tryant who ruled the country with fear. The tales marvelous spin around the fear of these manical man to create five hillarious tales of black comedy. It’s the funniest film of the year.


The King's Speech (UK, dir. Tom Hooper)
More than just another handsome period film about the privileged lives of frivolous Royals. The story of King George VI shows us with heart breaking emotion the intimate life of a shamed man. The inner conflict of the King's speech impediment matches up miraculously in the inspiring finale to the fate of the Allies in WWII, and thus the fate of the world at large. And Hooper, Firth et al nail it.


127 Hours (UK, dir. Danny Boyle)
Even more than Black Swan, we know exactly where this film is headed. After all, it’s based on a true story everybody's heard about, the self surgery of hiker who got his arm caught between two boulders in a Utah ravine. We know what happens to his arm, and by the title we know how long it takes him to cut it off. Yet Danny Boyle manages to make these 127 hours suspenseful and utterly frightening. Boyle swings us through all the emotions of Aron Ralston from his carefree ambitiousness, to his self-depricating humour, to his melancholy reflections of his family, his near psychotic emotional breakdown and finally in the glorious finale earth shattering triumph and elation. The final moments of this films is perhaps the most inspiring, life-affirming moment in cinema this year.

Toy Story 3 (US, dir. Lee Unkrich)
Like docs I rarely if ever list animated films on my top ten list. Yet I’m confident enough to say that Toy Story 3 is the best film Pixar has ever made. A fun, exciting, emotional ride with those lovable characters going back the original CG animated film in 1995.

Thanks for reading, but this list actually continues. Check out PART II HERE.

By Matt Reid

Hey everyone, it’s time for 2009’s Top 10 list…and only two weeks late (better than last year’s end-of-January list). To recap, I started this a couple years ago and people seem to enjoy getting it every year (based on the comments I get, such as ‘you are an idiot – you have terrible taste’), so I guess I’ll keep offering up my unsolicited opinions …

A big question I often get is ‘how do you find time for so much TV?’ I guess a more accurate name for this list would be Matt’s TV 2009 (dropping the Top 10) since the only shows I watch are the ones listed below (if a show is not keeping me interested, I stop watching). Plus a New Year’s resolution that Beth & I have to read more and watch less TV may make next year’s a Top 3 list…

Also, the usual disclaimer: these shows are ones that I (personally) watched in 2009 (and since I don’t have pay TV, some shows (e.g. Dexter) won’t be watched until this year on DVD)

First, the sub-categories:

As an avid-Anti Reality Show person, the three ones I actually do watch: The Amazing Race (still enjoyable), Survivor (Russell made it exciting again), Top Chef (mmmmm)

Shows that I used to enjoy but find truly unbearable now: Scrubs, Weeds, Heroes, SNL, Flash Forward (bonus points: this last one only took half a season!)

Honourable mention: Castle (fun guilty pleasure) Big Bang Theory (consistently funny), Office (still good but not what it once was), Rick Mercer Report & Dragon’s Den (these two are proof that my tax dollars can still churn out something worth watching)
Shows that are waiting for me on DVD so they can make next years’ list: Dexter (yes, I’m a little behind), The Wire (I know, I know, it’s the best show ever), Rome

And the Top 10 for this year:

10. How I Met Your Mother

I often hear ‘but it has a laugh track’…..when you generate this many laughs, even I can overlook that. This is more than just a means to an end (who even cares who the mother is); it’s an entertaining look at a group of friends growing up in New York City. A solid cast led Neil Patrick Harris plus writing that rewards loyal viewing puts this on the list for the second year in a row

9. Better Off Ted

I’ll be pretty surprised if anyone reading this watches this show – the ratings are horrific (so it is probably two weeks away from cancellation). From the gifted comedy mind behind Andy Richter Controls the Universe (the cult show that I enjoyed watching again on DVD this summer), it’s a great send-up of corporate culture at a large U.S. conglomerate. Solid performances led my Portia DeRossi (who proved she could do killer comedy in Arrested Development) and sharp writing make this one a winner.

8. Glee

A show unlike any other: completely over-the-top but never playing it safe. One of the most buzzed about shows of the fall, it’s got music (showcasing the power of great pop songs), comedy (Jane Lynch is top-notch), and drama (the reality of wanting to belong in high school). The show misses sometimes (pregnancy storylines, another ‘Glee club is doomed’ story) but it’s so nice to see a show try something different that it can be forgiven for those sins. I’m looking forward to the shows return….unfortunately, not until April

7. Friday Night Lights

Thanks to the investment by DirecTV, this low rated but critically loved show received a third season (and the fourth is on its way to NBC this spring/summer). One of the best depictions of small-town USA life, it is anchored by the top notch performances of Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. There’s been some turnover in the show’s young cast, but that only further adds to the realism of the show (people do go away to college, you know). A show with heart, humour and drama.

6. Fringe

A show from last year’s ‘Futures Pick’ list, it has become the next great sci-fi show. Whether the episode is part of the overall show arc/mythology or simply a creepy, self-contained episode, I find myself consistently enjoying it every week (and making in one of my first PVR playbacks from Thursday night). John Noble is brilliant as the eccentric Walter but the entire cast gives solid performances. Complex but not too myth-heavy, a show that has really hit its stride in its second season.

5. 30 Rock

Still one of the top laugh providers on my weekly TV schedule, Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey really deliver. With a tone that veers from biting satire to absurd over-the-top humour, this show has introduced phrases such as ‘Shark Farts’ and ’I Want to go to There’ to my vocabulary (which no doubt makes me seem weird to people who don’t watch the show). As someone who works for NBC-Universal, I’m interested to see if the show incorporates the sale by GE into the plot this year….

4. Modern Family

What a gem: the last comedy I remember arriving of the scene this fully formed was a little show called Arrested Development. Modern Family combines a snarky/sarcastic sense of humour with a good dose of heart (but not too sweet) for the fall’s best new show. The cast is solid overall, but early standouts include Ty Burrell as clueless dad Phil and Eric Stonestreet as son-in-law Cameron.

3. Breaking Bad

Bryan Cranston (who won his second Emmy in a row for this show) anchors this complex, darkly humorous and tragic look into the life of a man dying of cancer and the lengths he goes to to provide for his family. Finally getting a full season (Season 1 was cut short due to the writers strike) we became immersed in this world and, at season’s end, were left wondering where the web of deceit will take us next year.

2. Lost

Down from #1 last year but fully expected to regain that title for next year as we head into the final season. Definitely a more sci-fi heavy season last year but still unbelievably executed with amazing acting, writing and directing. The cliff hanger ending has only left us fans salivating in anticipation of the Final Season Premiere in just 3 weeks! Will the final episode satisfy everyone? Most likely not, but I’m just glad we’ve all been taken along on this exhilarating ride.

1. Mad Men

The jockeying between this and Lost for the #1 show seems to alternate in the last few years, but this year Mad Men was the show I found myself most looking forward to once the current week’s episode had ended. As Don Draper is finally forced to confront some issues he had so easily avoided before, the acting by Jon Hamm was second to none. January Jones and the rest of the cast also chipped in top notch performances and Matthew Weiner and his writing team delivered great drama against a historical backdrop. The season finale reset all the pieces and I already can’t wait for Season 4….

And a second opinion from my contributor, Blair Stewart:
(in no particular order):

Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay)
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin)
The Proposition (John Hillcoat)
Oldboy (Chan Wook-Park)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
Hidden (Cache) (Michael Haneke)
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini)
Punch Drunk-Love (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
No Country for Old Men (Coen Bros)
The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson)
Master and Commander:The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir)
Talk to Her (Almodovar)
Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron)
Metallica: SKOM (Joe Berlinger)
Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog)
Bloody Sunday (Paul Greengrass)

And a second opinion from my colleague, Greg Klymkiw:
(in alphabetical order):

Antichrist (Lars VonTrier)
Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl)
Eureka (Shinji Aoyama)
Freddy Got Fingered (Tom Green)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
Lives of Others, The (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin)
Passion of the Christ, The (Mel Gibson)
Sin City (Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller)