Best movie you've seen this year

The Departed was the best one I saw this year...Inside Man was solid...V was one of the worst movies I've ever seen in any given year--especially considering the hype.

Was Constant Gardener this year? Or last? If it's this year, it's No. 2 on my list.

 

Good responses thus far.

I'm the one who voted for Babel. To all the chords it played, I responded. I am willing to acknowledge its lapses, yet how I felt about it...

I like many others. Little Miss Sunshine. Hollywoodland. The Science of Sleep. The Break-Up. Borat. Slither. Flags Of Our Fathers, which I'm surprised nobody has mentioned.

But only Babel, Superman Returns and Inside Man were terrific.

The Departed is the worst movie Martin Scorsese's made in a long time, and I'm damn surprised at how lauded it is. It's pure nihilism, for one thing, a stupid Greek tragedy. I don't believe the "second mole" thing for a second. And the characters do inexplicable things in the last half hour. Beyond that, the script is littered with one-liners, Nicholson's character has little arc or weight, Baldwin's just scenery, so is Wahlberg. On and on. Critics are justifiably tearing into Bobby - a movie I predict a lot of people will love, actually, just like The Departed - for hiring a bunch of stars to perform menial sideshow acting tricks when The Departed does the same thing. Of all the movies for Scorsese to finally get the most acclaim...it has no heart, no hope. And that's a shame.

FWIW, Mel Gibson's picture, Apocalypto...it's gonna turn heads. I've seen it, it's one mean piece of business, and you're not likely to forget it.

 

Well, Crash won the whole enchilada with exactly that seeming ham-handed formula last year.\

 

I'm stunned how anyone could consider Superman Returns anything other than completely mediocre... Visually, it's great, but the script is horrendous and the acting is Star Warsesque and that's not a compliment...

 

I was stunned by its SAT-esque, incongruous inclusion in Alma's list.

But, like Wes Mantooth, I respect the hell out of the man, so I maintained silence.

 

I respect Alma's opinion, which will be the only reason why I will see Babel...

 

I've seen only two of the movies on the list, Flags and V for Vendetta. Flags was the better of the two, so it got my vote. The only other movie I saw in a theater this year was An Inconvenient Truth. It was a good movie, but doesn't really fit here.

I need to get out more . . .

 

We can agree to differ on Superman Returns. I thought it was beautiful and innocent. A real work of art. Maybe the finest comic movie book ever made.

Babel is a similar experience. Not as political as it is spiritual.

But, then, I respond most instinctually to filmmaking, not screenwriting. If I were to think back on the best films to me in recent years, I'm thinking of Elephant, George Washington, 2046, Dancer In The Dark, Birth - virtuoso filmmaking.

 

Wow. That answer surprises me... I didn't think Superman Returns was anywhere close to being as good as Batman Begins or either Spiderman movie... You're entitled to your opinion and I respect it, because you may be the only person on this board who sees more movies than I do, although I'm slacking a little this year.

The Good Shepherd is one I'm really excited about... Even though I love historical biopics, I think I'm going to hate "Bobby" because of all of the big names in the cast. I find that distracting at times. "Thin Red Line" jumps to mind as an example of this. I thought the movie was great, but found some of the cameos distracting...

I don't need to see Ashton Kutcher playing a hippie and Sharon Stone playing a hairdresser...

 

Mizzou,

Superman is just a different movie than those two. The first two are psychological. The third is mythological. They communicate differently. They used the medium differently.

At any rate, hope all check out The Fountain. A real work of love and passion. Whether you agree with it, it's asking the right questions; something that, ironically, the Star Trek series tried three different times (4,5 and 7) finding success only in The Voyage Home. Its comparisons to 2001 don't work for me (the logical comparison there was Solaris and the Alien Quad).

I've already said this before on this thread, but Bobby will be well-received. Saw it in the theater yesterday, when it ended, nobody moved. For a long time. Lot of tears. The critics feel a certain way about it; audiences will feel another. If nothing else, it's very sincere.

 

Finally saw Little Children...

Great movie... I'm not sure it's on the same level of Departed or The Queen, but it's pretty damn good...

 

Do you mean questions about mortality and immortality? I always found the perspective from Highlander interesting, because these characters who don't age or die of natural causes find ways to kill one another anyway. Maybe that's more thought than Highlander deserved, but I always saw it as a reflection of humanity's talent for self-destruction.

As far as the other films in the Highlander series, they are just proof of humanity's ability to create really shitty movies.