THE 3 BEST FILMS
1.
The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
Directed by: Michel Gondry
Genre: Drama; Comedy; Romance; Science-Fiction;
Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood and Tom Wilkinson
"The idea of blanking out every last thought of a failed romance, even if it means losing pleasure to get rid of pain, has a blithe topical spookiness; it's like an Orwellian satire of a world moderated -- neutered -- by psychiatric drugs. Kaufman and Gondry, though, aren't out to score didactic points but to dramatize how even our closest relationships are, in effect, stories that unfold in the ways we tell them to ourselves. The ''flaws'' of Joel and Clementine's edgy bond create the very electricity that holds it together. Joel, embracing his memories, comes to appreciate the fragile glory of each and every moment simply for being that moment. Watching ''Eternal Sunshine,'' you don't just watch a love story -- you fall in love with what love really is."
by Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly
"It's rarely a compliment when I refer to an actor as "straitjacketed," but the straitjacketing of Jim Carrey is fiercely poignant. You see all that manic comic energy imprisoned in this ordinary man, with the anarchism peeking out and trying to find a way to express itself. And you know instantly what he sees in Winslet's Clementine, beyond her physical beauty: She's an overdramatizer, a blurter-out of inner truths. Winslet—who's as scorching here as she was in Iris (2001)—takes a character that could be too lah-di-dah in the Annie Hall mode and makes her chaotic, even violent. Everything that attracts Joel to her will one day drive him mad; yet a universe without Clementine will be a blue and cold and empty place. The leads alone would make this movie, but the supporting cast enacts a parallel drama that adds dissonances and echoes all over the place. And I've never heard a score quite like Jon Brion's, which is weirder than his work on Punch-Drunk Love. A mixture of pop songs and chamber music, it seems to be carrying on a whimsical conversation of its own in a parallel universe, with hints of calliopes and silent horror movies. The music peaks in the scene in which Dunst recites the lines from Pope and Joel has a vision of himself and Clementine on the street amid a parade of circus elephants—an exhortation, perhaps, on behalf of memory. I thought Kaufman's Adaptation (2002) was wildly overrated, but it obviously did wonders for his confidence: He has the fearlessness now to move the boundary posts of romantic comedy. This is the best movie I've seen in a decade. For once it's no hyperbole to say, "Unforgettable!"
by David Edelstein in Slate
2.
Million Dollar Baby
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Genre: Drama
Starring: Hillary Swank, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Mackie and Jay Baruchel
"Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" is a masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true. It tells the story of an aging fight trainer and a hillbilly girl who thinks she can be a boxer. It is narrated by a former boxer who is the trainer's best friend. But it's not a boxing movie. It is a movie about a boxer. What else it is, all it is, how deep it goes, what emotional power it contains, I cannot suggest in this review, because I will not spoil the experience of following this story into the deepest secrets of life and death. This is the best film of the year."
by Roger Ebert in Chicago Sun-Times
"The film scarcely needs its too-corny-to-be-believable subplot about Frankie's estranged daughter, to whom he writes a (returned) letter every week: The chemistry between Eastwood and Swank is touching and spiky and true. It is also gently, unstatedly romantic. Eastwood turns Frankie's gym into a saddened home of losers and dreamers, with Morgan Freeman, in full world-weary twinkle, as Scrap, Frankie's one-eyed former fighter and only friend. For a while, Million Dollar Baby is a gritty fairy tale in the tradition of Rocky and The Color of Money. Under Frankie's hand, Maggie develops a knockout punch as fearsome as Sugar Ray's, and if her success requires a modest suspension of disbelief, that is more than trumped by the violent bravura of the fight scenes. It may be easier, in the relatively novel world of female boxing, to accept that a fighter could triumph through sheer hunger and will; Swank's performance embodies those qualities with fetching moxie. But then Million Dollar Baby takes a sudden dark turn. Does it work? Let's just say that I never expected Clint Eastwood to do his finest filmmaking in years in a movie that evokes the tender religio-extravagance of Douglas Sirk."
by Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly
3.
Diarios de Motocicleta
Directed by: Walter Salles
Genre: Drama
Starring: Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo De la Serna and Mila Maestro
"At times, "The Motorcycle Diaries," which opens today in New York and Los Angeles, bounces along like a conventional buddy picture, animated by Ernesto and Alberto's mechanical mishaps and good-natured squabbles. But the film, written by José Rivera, is really a love story in the form of a travelogue. The love it chronicles is no less profound — and no less stirring to the senses — for taking place not between two people but between a person and a continent. Mr. Bernal's soulful, magnetic performance notwithstanding, the real star of the film is South America itself, revealed in the cinematographer Eric Gautier's misty green images as a land of jarring and enigmatic beauty. At the end of the film, after his sojourn at the leper colony has confirmed his nascent egalitarian, anti-authority impulses, Ernesto makes a birthday toast, which is also his first political speech. In it he evokes a pan-Latin American identity that transcends the arbitrary boundaries of nation and race. "The Motorcycle Diaries," combining the talents of a Brazilian director and leading actors from Mexico (Mr. Bernal) and Argentina (Mr. de la Serna), pays heartfelt tribute to this idea. In an age of mass tourism, it also unabashedly revives the venerable, romantic notion that travel can enlarge the soul, and even change the world."
by A.O. Scott in New York Times
"Moments of enlightenment show subtly on Bernal's face. There is an instant of recognition when Ernesto, on a river ship, looks down at the poor people on the smaller boat hitched behind. Soon after, the character experiences a severe asthma attack; the movie ties Guevara's struggle with his lifelong medical condition to his empathy for the disenfranchised. Ernesto's connection to people in need is visceral, tactile. It shows in the way he smoothes the forehead of a terminally ill woman who cannot afford a proper doctor. "The Motorcycle Diaries'' makes only tenuous connections between its tender young Guevara and the man who would later use and advocate violence. But it does present his youthful behavior as a piece of an altruistic whole. The picture tracks only an 8,000-mile chunk of a very large life, but it makes serious inroads into humanizing an icon."
by Carla Meyer in San Francisco Chronicle
BEST ACTING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR
Javier Bardem for Mar Adentro
BEST ACTING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS
Kate Winslet for The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
BEST ACTING BY AN ENSEMBLE CAST
Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, Joie Lee, Cinqué Lee, Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Joseph Rigano, Vinny Vella, Renée French, Isaach De Bankolé, Cate Blanchett, Mike Hogan, Jack White, Meg White, Alfred Molina, Steve Coogan, GZA, RZA, Bill Murray, William Rice and Taylor Mead
for Coffee and Cigarettes
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Freddie Highmore for Finding Neverland
