I have to second ArchiveGuy’s nomination of All The Real Girls. I went and saw this movie having heard nothing about it, and it was really great. It moves at a leisurely pace, without a really strong narrative, but it’s well acted and beautifully shot.
I loved A Mighty Wind, although not as much as Best in Show.
X2 was better than the first one, and much better than i expected it to be. A really good, fun action film.
I thought Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Quiet American (both directed by Philip Noyce) were fantastic, but i don’t know whether or not they qualify. I saw them both at the cinema this year, but i think they may have been released earlier.
City of God was absolutely thrilling. The naturalistic acting, the fabulous music, the stylish editing. Easily my favorite movie of the year; but I lived in Rio and love Brazil, so I’m a bit biased.
Russian Ark was very cool visually, but left me cold. The set was fantastic.
Winged Migration was a great followup to Microcosmos. The sense of flight is really breathtaking.
Ararat just did not do it for me. I’m very interested in the Armenian genocide, but the movie was not what I expected it would be, so it gets a bit of an unfair penalty there. Also I found the plot and dialogue to be utterly flat.
All these event movies, like Matrix Reloaded and X-Men 2 and the Hulk were fun but not great, and pretty much delivered what I wanted them to. I hear the action scenes in Terminator 3 are worth seeing. I’m really waiting on Return of the King to be the daddy of them all, like everyone else.
I’ve had to put off seeing 28 Days Later until this weekend. I’m very, very excited to see it. Zombies are my favorite horror movie genre, and everyone seems to like this one.
Is no one going to put the Cremaster cycle on their best list? I certainly won’t.
The best film I’ve seen so far this year (that I can tell you about) was at the Seattle film festival: American Splendor. It’s scheduled for a national release in August. Absolutely stunning. Read my writeup here.
Hulk – Amazing piece of filmmaking. Not at all what the summer audience was expecting.
Bend It Like Beckham and Whale Rider – Big crowd-pleasers that don’t suck. The latter, especially, is quite a good film. I urge people to seek it out.
X-Men 2 – On the way out, my wife said, “Wow, that had an actual story. Almost like a real movie.” I laughed. Kind of a back-handed compliment, but accurate. Much better than it should have been.
From the OP: I was underwhelmed by Marooned in Iraq and Russian Ark.
Everybody who considers themselves a movie fan, I cannot recommend American Splendor highly enough. When it comes out in August, you must, must, see it.
Time seems to be running together for me lately so I’m having trouble remembering which movies came out when. I’ll do what I can though…
In no order.
-Gerry
-Holes
-Phone Booth
-28 Days Later
-Matrix Reloaded
-X2
-Confidence
-Daredevil
-Shanghai Knights -although probably won’t win an oscar, I laughed my ars off.
I suppose this is more of a favorites list for me, but I’ll stick with it. My favorite is Gerry, no doubt.
I’m not sure if it came out very late last year or early this year but I’ll include it anyway. About Schmidt was a brilliant film. Jack Nicholson was just superb at playing his age and Kathy Bates was great as usual.
Even though it technically came out last year, I thought Chicago was the best film I’ve seen this year. Gangs of New York was also awesome.
I’ve also loved The Matrix Reloaded, X-2, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. I thought 28 Days Later was a good film, too. Some of the others that I haven’t seen like Phone Booth, I’ll either purchase or rent through Netflix.
It did more than exceed expectations. Better than X2, Matrix Reloaded, Terminator AND T2. And best movie so far this year. Though I haven’t seen some of the others listed in this thread.
I agree with the “big 3” it seems: The Matrix: Reloaded Finding Nemo
and X-2
If I had to pick a movie that I was most pleasantly surprised with this year, it would be The Italian Job. It was the best heist/double-cross movie in a long time, it was funny and serious at the right times, and the cast was great without stepping all over each other.
Oh, and one other thing… I can’t believe I saw Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle in this thread. I would easily place it first on my list of worst movies since Battlefield Earth.
