#27 "Trance" (2013)

Sometimes a group of talented, experienced filmmakers (say, Director Danny Boyle, Screenwriter John Hodge and D.P. Anthony Dod Mantle) come together with a group of gifted, dynamic performers (for example, Vincent Cassel, Rosario Dawson and James McAvoy) who are unafraid to bare it all physically and emotionally and create something that... just really doesn't work.

Yes indeed, "Trance" is that movie.

I was excited for this one, despite some lukewarm reviews - I love "Shallow Grave" and really enjoy Danny Boyle at his twisty and twisted best. The idea of James McAvoy as a young art-dealer caught up with criminals in the heist of a rare Goya painting is already appealing. Add in the twist that he has actually forgotten where he put it and is forced by gang boss Frank (Cassel) into hypnotherapy with a sexy, enigmatic doctor played by Rosario Dawson, and I'm ready for some mind-bending, plot-twisting, stylized fun that doesn't need to have any deeper meaning as long as it makes for a rollercoaster good time.

To be fair, the film feels like just that as it starts, with McAvoy as auctioneer Simon giving an ironic to-the-camera monologue about the history of art theft and current security procedures at the high-end galleries like Delancy's, where he works. All this is intercut with shots of how those procedures are supposed to go and how they actually work as Frank's gang kicks off the actual heist of the Goya. So far, so fun.

After Simon is captured and worked over by the gang, who have discovered that they've stolen the frame but not the painting, they realize that the crack on the head he sustained during the heist may have actually caused him amnesia and that Simon cannot remember where he stashed the loot. Lacking other options, Frank sends Simon in to see ace hypnotherapist Elizabeth (Dawson), wired for sound so the gang will hear it when he spills the beans.

Up to this point in the basic set-up I'm with it. I mean, sure, the hypnotherapy idea is one hell of a dramatic conceit, but it's one with all kinds of possibilities. And Doyle and Dod Mantle do have some fun with Simon's liminal imaginings, including a great conversation Simon has with a near-decapitated Frank and a gallery Simon walks into that contains all the world's stolen artwork.

But then the twists come and they keep coming and coming. It doesn't help that there are practically no shots in the film that look like they take place in reality - wide-angled lenses, diffusion filters and color schemes that range from good ol' teal-and-orange to expressionistic reds to a world full of lavender. It's kind of entertaining to see what the lads do with it all, and some of it's quite pretty, but when every single frame screams "It's not real! None of this is real!", it's mighty hard to feel invested in anything or anyone.

As is always the danger with this kind of twisty movie, all the reveals and reverses and fake-outs and mind-fucks quickly become exhausting and end up being ridiculous rather than thrilling or moving or even surprising. "Trance" is still worth seeing for its one-of-a-kind nutsiness and visual experimentation - and it certainly keeps moving - but it's not a film that elicits much of any emotional response. Kooky images aside, I feel like I'm starting to forget the actual film already, just like waking up from an involved, confused and strangely lavender-shaded dream.

#26 "The Visitor" (2007)

In 1999, shortly after the release of "The Matrix," Britain's venerable film journal Sight & Sound published an editorial proclaiming the soon-to-come end of humanistic cinema. With the new heights of realism and spectacle achieved by computer-generated imagery, the article reasoned, and the desire for simplified narrative to reach worldwide audiences, fewer and fewer films about nuanced, believable characters in real-life situations would be made. Oh sure, there'd still be the odd Mike Leigh or Ken Loach mining that vein of intimate drama and neorealism to the bitter end, but the writing was on the wall. The editorial was striking, articulate, prophetic and, of course, completely wrong.

As with popular music and video games, our age of globalization, readily accessible high-end technology and internet distribution has made the world of filmmaking much, much bigger and much, much smaller simultaneously. Not only that, but these technological forces have made it easier than ever before for the smallest to compete with the biggest for audience, critical attention and even dollars.

In the world of video games this has meant annual "Call of Duty" and "Madden Football" sequels and personal, inventive gems made by tiny teams (or single creators) like "Fez" or "Gone Home." For film this has meant that micro-budgeted films as diverse as "Once" or "Paranormal Activities" have been able to take the world by storm even as "Harry Potter" and "Iron Man" sequels continue to thrive. And even as the latter keep breaking their own records to become the highest-grossing films ever made, the world of small, humanistic films, like "The Visitor" is alive and well.

In "The Visitor," Richard Jenkins, a superb character actor who has been on the New York scene for over 30 years now, takes center stage as Walter Vale, an uptight professor going through the motions at a college in Connecticut. Forced by his department to present a paper at a conference in New York City, he returns to the apartment he owned there with his deceased wife, only to discover that it has been unofficially 'subrented' by a third party to Tarek (played by Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira, who would go on to fame as Michonne in AMC's "The Walking Dead"). They are a young creative couple (he a player of West African drums, she a bracelt and earring maker) who are also illegal immigrants. After the initial shock of discovering each other, Walter and Tarek form a bond with Walter allowing the couple to stay at his place and Tarek teaching Walter how to play the djembe and taking him out to his drum circle and professional gigs.

The beginning of this beautiful friendship is cut short, though, by Tarek's accidental apprehension on the subway and consequent discovery of his illegal status in the country. Tarek is moved to a detention center in Queens, a place which neither Zainab nor Tarek's family can visit for fear of being detained themselves. With the threat of deportation facing Tarek, Walter decides to step up, visiting Tarek regularly, passing on messages from his loved ones and hiring an immigration lawyer to fight Tarek's case. Eventually word of his detention reaches Tarek's mother who, against Tarek's wishes, travels to New York to be as close as she can to her son, while forming a real bond with Walter.

If you had to shoe-horn "The Visitor" into a particular genre, I suppose you could call it a slice-of-life drama - although its impact is more joyous and emotionally satisfying than that might imply. Director Tom McCarthy (working from his own script) does a great job of creating characters we really care about, supported by universally excellent performances from all four leads - in particular from awkward but likeable Jenkins and gregarious extrovert Sleiman, who are a terrific odd couple. Starting slowly, McCarthy crafts a story that, following Tarek's detention, becomes more and more involving with real emotion that never descends into miserabilism or sentimentality.

This film definitely touched a nostalgic nerve in me, as it is an excellently textured portrayal of the real New York City - as well as being the kind of low-but-not-no-budget indie I have worked on as a Line Producer (it even has a lovely cameo appearance by Laith Nakli, one of my frequent - and favorite - collaborators). Even beyond that very personal appeal, I really respected the way that Tom McCarthy told a story that was so different from the quirky-white-people-with-introspective-personal-problems that has become indie cliche, without being preachy or heavy-handed.

From the first ten minutes I thought I knew exactly where the film was going and I was happy to be wrong. Beyond the original conceit of Tarek and Walter's meeting (not that hard to imagine given New York real estate practices, actually...), this is a story that always feels authentically driven by its characters and the social forces they interact with."The Visitor" is a great reminder of everything that's most awesome about human beings, while never letting us forget the bigger social realities that also shape our lives in ways that are not always fair or in keeping with who we are and who we want to be.

#25 "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2011)

I first saw the original Swedish adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (or "Men who Hate Women," as it was entitled in Sweden) almost four years ago and although I didn't like it as much as I thought I would, it did leave some very strong impressions.

The first of these impressions was completely personal - a strong sense of relief that I had not taken my mother and uncle, who I love going to the movies with, to see it at the cinema. The film's portrayal of sexual violence was more than I would have wanted them to be exposed to - and it would have been beyond uncomfortable watching it with them.

I was certainly struck, as I think everyone who saw the film was, by Noomi Rapace's career-making performance as brilliant hacker and investigator Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is a talented but deeply wounded young woman who wears her heart on her skin in her punk hairstyle, piercings and (naturally) tattoos but who has so much that her emotions are deeply internalized, often causing consternation or outright offense to others.

Certain moments in the film are unforgettable, largely due to the plot rather than original Director Niels Arden Oplev's craft - the sexual violence Lisbeth suffers and then retaliates with being first and foremost. But for such a long film with subplots about industrial corruption, the dangers of pursuing truth in a superficially respectable society and the effects of profound abuse and reactions of those who suffer it, I'd really expected more depth. Instead, the film felt like a particularly long, particularly sensational episode of a TV procedural, with an incredible performance at its center.

Finally, I couldn't shake the feeling that Michael Nyqvist in the main role of journalist Mikael Blomkvist was almost an exact Swedish doppelganger for Daniel Craig...

Apparently David Fincher had a similar feeling about Mr Craig, for he does indeed star as Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist who has just had a jury rule against him in a libel case brought by a powerful businessman Mikael had just profiled. Mikael is then approached by old industrialist Henrik Vanger (a perfectly cast Christopher Plummer), who wants Mikael to investigate the murder of his niece Harriet, who disappeared on the remote family-owned island of Hedeby where Harriet disappeared 40 years ago.

Under the pretense of writing old man Vanger's memoirs, Mikael begins to research and feel out the Vanger family but finds himself stymied by an unspoken code of secrecy and the length of time that the case has been 'cold.' Appealing for assistance with his research, Mikael is matched up with Lisbeth Salander (the titular 'girl') who brings with her exceptional talent, unsentimental determination and an intensely personal but emotionally internalized hatred of men who enjoy hurting women.

Craig does excellent work as Mikael - a flawed but sympathetic protagonist who is driven by professional ego and the need for personal (and financial) redemption, but also by a genuine determination to find the truth and personal loyalty to Henrik, a man who has helped Mikael in his darkest hour. Stellan Skarsgard is equally superb as Martin, Henrik's nephew, who is Mikael's greatest champion and ally in the family after Henrik falls into a coma midway through the investigation. Skarsgard brings a real sense of bonhomie to the role of Martin, while revealing an intensity in the climactic scenes of the film that feels true to the character he has created. That reveal in the original film felt too many too much like a self-conscious plot twist, almost arbitrary in its nature - Skarsgard and Fincher make it feel like all too convincing believable and uncomfortable.

But the film, of course, belongs to Rooney Mara as Lisbeth. Fincher was never in danger of being eclipsed by Niels Arden Oplev, Director of the original, but Mara's taking on the role of Lisbeth as unforgettably embodied by another actress seemed like a creative kamikaze mission - no matter how good she was, how could she possibly compare to Rapace? Excellently, as it turns out. With her bleached-out eyebrows, Mara looks even further out-there and more alien than Rapace, but her real accomplishment is to completely disappear into the role. And this is a role which requires extensive, unglamorous nudity and an ability both to suggest emotional scarring and hidden vulnerability under a deadened surface and to plunge unhesitatingly into real rage and grief when that surfaced is penetrated physically and emotionally.

Fincher is one of the greatest living craftsmen in film, a Director with a deep understanding of his medium, but he brings more than just craft (and the resources to better implement that craft) to his own take on the story. The most important of these creative decisions is simply that he leaves the story in its original time and setting. The temptation, and studio pressure, for any Hollywood adaptation of a foreign-language is original is to transplant the original story and characters into an American setting much more easily relatable to a domestic audience. Sometimes this works well ("The Departed" and "Let Me In" make nuanced, well-realized cultural transpositions from the Hong Kong and Swedish originals), but most of the time this studio-approved transplanting kills the patient.

By removing the cultural specifics that made the original so textured and compelling, the Americanized re-makes typically end creating forgettable and generic junk. Just like the trend in the '90's and early '00's to adapt Shakespeare for modern teen audiences, the studio's mistake is that what made the original interesting was its story (though Shakespeare freely stole most of his) when what really attracted the audience was the way the story was told. Watch Stephen Frears' "Dangerous Liaisons" and "Cruel Intentions" back-to-back for a perfect illustration of this principle in action. The latter film was directed by Roger Kumble, in case you were wondering, who also went on to direct "Cruel Intentions 2" (and yes, there is a reason why you've never heard of the guy).

I know very little about Swedish society, but I can say that certain crucial story points just wouldn't make sense in an American context: the weight of European libel laws and the absence of 1st amendment protections on journalists, Lisbeth's status as a 23-year-old 'ward of the state' and the vulnerability that creates for her, the specific dull respectability of the Swedish business establishment and the proximity of pure, lethal Nazism. These would need to either be erased, making the story that much blander, or forced into the script, stretching our suspension of disbelief and making it harder for us to believe in and identify with the character's motivations.

Fincher also does a much better job than Oplev of getting beneath the surface of the salacious story. This means that the story goes well beyond its main dramatic climax (as, to be fair, does Oplev's version), but it gives much more meaning to Mikael's motivations as an investigator and to the theme of the profound corruption of what we would now call 'the 1%,'  a corruption that is buried beneath a thick veneer of respectability. The film's epigrammatic tag line, "What is hidden in the snow, comes forth in the thaw," is a Swedish proverb that is a rare example of the form that is both strikingly memorable and true to the themes and feel of the movie.

In Oplev's version, that dramatic climax, in which Mikael seems to have no means of escape from a truly horrifying fate, feels more intellectually than emotionally awful. Fincher's skill at creating all-too-believable psychopaths makes this scene genuinely chilling and physically menacing, the killer's motivation and elaborate set-up the terrifyingly plausible result of a history of abuse combined with an awareness of their unchecked inherited power.

Similarly, Fincher's staging and the performances of Mara and Yorick van Wageningen, as Lisbeth's predatory state 'guardian,' make the sensationally cruel abuse that Lisbeth suffers and then avenges herself for, seem more real and humanly motivated. In Oplev's original, these scenes felt effective but utterly manipulative, a skilfully played version of the most exploitative kind of rape-revenge story.

As I mentioned, both films go well beyond their main climax and resolution of the 'whodunnit' mystery, but again Fincher's version does more and more interestingly than Oplev's. I haven't read the novel, so I can't say (and don't really care too much) which is more faithful to Larsson's original, but Fincher's resolution of the tale of what happened to young Harriet Vanger is more narratively satisfying and a more meaningful take on the theme of what is hidden beneath the surface than Oplev's.

It would be an interesting exercise to watch both movies back-to-back for scene-by-scene detail, and I'm sure I would see strength's in Oplev's telling that I may not be remembering some four years on. I think Fincher's is the far stronger film, but I don't think it supplants the Swedish original, if only because of Rapace's dazzling performance. What is certainly true is that "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a perfect fit for Fincher's themes and craft and one that he obviously took seriously as his own work of art, rather than just as a higher-production-value remake by a Director-for-hire. If all English-language remakes were this good, I would look forward to them in the same way I look forward to seeing a new staging of "The Tempest," rather than seeing their only creative value as a reminder of quite how good the originals were.

#24 "Mama" (2013)

Guillermo del Toro, one of our most imaginative and visionary filmmakers, has taken up a side-line as Producer and Executive Producer of a series of independent films that neatly fit with his most cherished themes and his passion for stories that take place on the border between the Horror and Fantasy genres.

"Mama" is the latest of these films - a spooky tale of two young girls almost killed in the woods by their desperate father (who has just murdered his wife) saved by a mysterious, supernatural creature (the titular 'Mama') and raised by her in the wild. Discovered by their paternal uncle's search party five years later, the sisters have become truly feral, and uncle Jeffrey (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) gains custody of them with his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain). Little do they know that the girls did not survive alone and that their previous 'foster-mother' has no interest in letting her girls go that easily.

It's easy to see why the material appealed to del Toro: "Mama" is an intimate, relationship-driven combination of horror and fantasy with a strong focus on the children who have the closest connection to the supernatural. But while the first of these del Toro-'branded' projects, 2007's "The Orphanage," was a true artistic success, "Mama" falls well short of the mark, despite a strong visual flare and a couple of nice directorial touches.

The film looks lovely, with an appropriately desaturated color palette, chiaroscuro lighting with rich blacks and good use of effects work - both practical and CGI. 'Mama' herself is very well-crafted, a combination of effects augmenting a brilliant motion-captured physical performance by Javier Botet. The general wisdom these days is that you want to show as little as possible for as long as possible of the creature in the feature, a la "Jaws" or Val Lewton's RKO pics. That's generally a great strategy when the primary purpose of the movie is suspense and / or horror, but "Mama" takes a different approach, showing us more and earlier than other films might. I think that was appropriate here, because this isn't a pure fear-driven movie. "Mama" has some serious failings but, to its credit (and also its detriment), it has more on its mind than just making us jump.

But, oh, does "Mama" want us to jump - in fact, it could be Exhibit A in the People's Case against over-used jump scares. Almost every horror movie has those moments when the creature / killer / really dangerous thing pops up and attacks, menaces its prey or just terrifies us (the old "he's behind you!"). Usually this is accompanied by a sudden audio sting, often a very high note - a shriek of violin or a pling! of a piano key. If you turn the volume down, though, you realize that it's usually the sudden noise that makes you jump, not the image alone. It's like William Castle's Tingler (TM) - a little buzzer under your seat that makes you feel a jolt of fear, whether you want to or not.

When jump scares are used skilfully by a Director who has created an atmosphere of suspense, dread or just good old-fashioned horror, it can be a very effective way of taking the viewer past suspension of disbelief and into pure identification with the terrified characters. It's the final note of a well-constructed crescendo.

Used lazily, though, it's a lot more like the Tingler - a cheap trick, and one that, minus the wacky William-Castle-style novelty, is kind of insulting to its audience. And that's exactly how it's used in "Mama," over and over (I think I actually told the film to "piss off" out loud at least once). The feral kids pop up out of nowhere, Mama pops up out of nowhere, the light flickers, Annabel wakes up from a nightmare and it's audio stings and Tingle all the way.

"Mama" is Director Andres Muschietti's first feature and it really shows in his lack of confidence that his story, characters and visuals will pull us in. It's not just the Tingling that he uses to hammer us over the head.

Exposition in a horror film is never easy, as it generally involves stopping the story's forward motion and diffusing its tension to explain something that's fundamentally nonsensical. But, boy, does Muschietti blow it here. The kid's psychologist, Dr Dreyfuss, out to make a name for himself, does the research and explaining here and I cringed for actor Daniel Kash whenever he doled out or received the information-that-explains-it-all.

The narrative has its own clunkiness, too, both in predictability and contrivance. For the former, just look to the moment when the (not-so) good doctor decides to go down to the cabin in the woods where the girls were raised by Mama. He does so in the dead of night, alone and without telling anyone. How do we think that will work out for him?

As for contrivance: For an example of the latter, the girl's uptight, unsympathetic Aunt Jean who wants custody of the girls decides that she should break in to the girls house to get 'evidence' for Child Protective Services on the very night the supernatural excrement hits the ventilator. Why? Not because it's true to her character as established, not because it really makes sense as a plan, but because it's really, really convenient for setting up the film's finale.

There's one scene that really worked for me, which feels like the work of a more confident Director. Holding a completely static shot with no cut-aways, Muschietti shows us on one side of the frame the upstairs hallway and on the other the children's room. On the right side, we see younger sibling Lily in her room happily playing with a game of tug-of-war with a blanket. On the left we see Jessica Chastain as Annabel walking toward the room. Instead Annabel sees Victoria and turns around.

It takes a second to work out, but Lilly is obviously playing with Mama, and Annabel is heading towards seeing the creature full-on. It's a creepy scene both because of the tension of wondering if Annabel is walking into danger - a tension unreleased in the long shot until the end of the scene, and enhanced by the fact that we never see Mama. But what makes it more interesting is that, while we know from the get-go that Mama is fully capable of being lethal, she and Lilly really are just playing together and having a great time - Annabel might be in danger but Lilly isn't.

More than anything else, "Mama" feels like a missed opportunity to me. Mama herself is a great creature not only visually, but also narratively - she's a monster / villain with actual complexity of motivation, not just a 'killer who had a traumatic think happen and now he / she needs to everyone because trauma.' This is a film with an intriguing premise that would be well worth re-making. If put in the hands of the right Director,  this could be a great little B-movie.

#23 "Pitch Perfect" (2012)

This is a very silly movie. It's silly, campy, utterly predictable in its narrative and filled with songs that I do my best to tune out when they're played over and over in places where I can't actively flee from them. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

"Pitch Perfect" is to collegiate acappella singing as "Bring it On" is to high school gymnastics (minus the 'whole privileged white kids stealing the poorer black kids' work subplot). The all-female Barden University Bellas have just wiped out in the national a cappella championship in the most memorable (and gross) way possible. The squad is down to its two sorority-peppy leaders desperately trying to piece together a competent, wholesome and sorority-peppy group of Bellettes for the coming season. Instead, they find themselves leading a rag-tag squadron of oddballs, misfits and the-incredibly-talented-and-pretty-girl-who-thinks-she's-too-cool-for-this-but-really-has-heart-and-team-spirit-and-mad-skills (fun fact, in German, that's all one - very, very long - word).

Can they overcome their differences, hone their skills, get their moves and notes down and take it all the way to the top? The answer may surprise you.

If you have never seen movies.

But "Pitch Perfect" knows that you know and, one (decently well-done) narrative fake-out aside, doesn't patronize its audience or pretend to be anything other than what it is. And what it is, is a lot of fun and funny song and dance numbers, well-choreographed and arranged and strung together like so much audiovisual candy.

Anna Kendrick carries the lead well and is all kinds of lovely and likeable as the incredibly-talented-and-pretty-girl-who-thinks-etc. (what was that German word again?). Kendrick has the kind of smart, cute short-chick charisma Sarah Michelle Gellar used to have before she dedicated her life to becoming the anti-Buffy. Skylar Astin does a very good job with the part of the tangential male love interest (and rival aca group member) and gives the completely predictable story beats real warmth and charm. And Rebel Wilson as the self-described Fat Amy  is awesomely awesome with her Tasmanian deadpan that nails some of the best lines of the movie ("Even though I know some of you are pretty skinny, you all have fat hearts... and that's what matters").

When it's done this well and this endearingly, this kind of silly, campy, fun movie is the silly, campy, fun I can really get behind.

Oh, and I finally get why the whole 'cups song' thing became a mini-craze last year. Kendrick's performance of it is adorkable and will, I think, go a long way toward rehabilitating the image of girls and cups and such.

#22 "The Triplets of Belleville" (2003)

"Triplets of Belleville" is a charming, fairytale-like story with some highly creative, very out-there and outrrrageously French stylings.

Madame Souza is raising her grandson (known only as 'Champion'), whose parents, we are led to assume, have died long before the film opens. The boy is quiet, withdrawn and seems uninterested in everything. After several failed attempts to get him out of his shell, Granny Souza buys him a puppy which he loves... and then falls back into melancholy apathy. Finally she discovers the boy's real passion when she buys him a bike.

Cut to 20 years later and the boy is now a dedicated young cyclist and Granny Souza is his coach, time-keeper and number 1 fan. Champion enters the Tour de France (with Granny right behind him in the follow wagon, blowing her training whistle every inch of the way). Falling behind the pack, however, he and two other cyclists are kidnapped by . They are taken to Belleville, a kind of America-on-steroids in the heart of France (go with it), where they are trained to take part in an underground and potentially deadly cycling event. Undeterred, Granny Souza tracks her grandson down and with the help of the now-aged triplets and her dog Bruno, plans a daring rescue.

But to begin at the beginning... We open with a self-consciously old-school black and white cartoon, the kind where everyone and everything is moving back and forth to the beat (think Betty Boop or Steamboat Willy). The style is spot-on but the content of the cartoon, which introduces us to the titular triplets performing their signature hit "Belleville Rendezvous," is kind of a turn-off. Big fat ladies pour out of tiny cars for the red-carpet performance dragging their (literally) spineless, foppish husbands flopping along with them - one of whom is stuck in his wife's hindquarters. The performance itself is wacky and kind of awesome (Jango Reinhardt plays guitar with his toes), if a little disturbing (Fred Astaire gets eaten by his tap shoes....).

And then Josephine Baker comes on stage, bare-breasted and with a skirt made of bananas. And then the top-hatted men in the audience turn into monkeys and race on stage to eat Josephine's banana-skirt. And then we pull back from the black and white cartoon into a TV set in the 'real' world of the animated feature. Which is a very good thing, because that's a really ugly moment and the rest of the film is rather wonderful.

Told in an almost-wordless style, animator Sylvain Chomet's first feature is a love-letter to old cartoons, Vaudeville, the films of Chaplin and Keaton and much, much more. The film is animated in a lovingly hand-drawn style, with skilful use of CGI for some of its tracking shots. Chomet loves the grotesque and the exaggerated - the mafiosi so tough and hunched over their entire bodies are literal rectangles, the cyclists with legs thicker than their torsos who act more like horses than men, the cruise liners so tall they would capsize with the first wave in the real world. At the same time, Chomet's team paint beautiful and nostalgic backdrops for their story, and Chomet obviously has real affection for Granny, Bruno and the triplets.

"Triplets of Belleville" is filled with great, imaginative touches that always make me smile. Bruno loves to bark at the train that passes right outside Granny Souza's window and we follow the dog into his dreams more than once as he pictures himself on that train being barked at by the passengers in his house window. The triplets' final performance, as pictured above, is an inventive hoot, set up as a gag on the sisters' inexplicable eccentricity earlier in the film. And the final chase scene is both epic and epically ridiculous (not to mention surprisingly explosive).

This is an incredible first feature - packed with energy and invention, it takes inspiration from (and directly references) so many different sources, while still being its own unique beastie. In many ways, though, it was just a warm-up for Chomet's 2010 masterpiece, "L'Illusioniste." But that, dear reader, is a tale for another post.

#21 "Her" (2013)

"Her" is the tale of one man and his love affair with his artificially intelligent operating system.

OK, that sounds like the set-up for an awful high-concept Hollywood comedy directed by Todd Phillips - or a snarky satire on modern technocracy by Mike Judge. Instead, it's a truly beautiful, complex and often poignant movie that skilfully blends the very best of two very different genres - science fiction and romantic comedy - and is one of the most amazing films in a year of amazing films. There's so much going on in Spike Jonze's fourth feature film that I won't even try to hit on it all here. I can tell that this is a film that I will keep coming back to over the years.

The performances are stunning. I don't usually give a damn about Oscar "snubs," but, yes, Joaquin Phoenix was robbed by not being nominated for his portrayal of Theodore Twombly, a writer at beautifulhandwrittenletters.com, who makes his living capturing the deepest feelings of other people and expressing those emotions to those nearest and dearest to his clients. Amy Adams is so real as his friend and one-time girlfriend, a struggling documentarian and a professional games designer of games like "Perfect Mom," where players get Mom-points for feeding their children right and making other Mom's jealous with their baking skills. Rooney Mara is sweet, captivating and sharp as Theodore's soon-to-be ex-wife, who he is struggling to let go of. And Scarlet Johansson is perfect as the breathy, ironic and vulnerable Samantha, a universal operating system customized for, but independent from, its user.

That's one of the things that most impressed me about this film: it all feels so three-dimensionally real emotionally. None of the characters feel like they exist as stereotypes or plot devices or go-to punchlines, even though a lot of the film is genuinely funny. Everyone in this world has agency, self-awareness, a sense of humor and complexity, even the supporting characters like Theodore's overly-impressed colleague or Olivia Wilde as Theodore's emotionally desperate date. Every character has a life outside the frame (very much including Samantha, as we see more and more throughout the film).

Jonze backs this up with a thorough, well-thought-out and complete vision of the near-future and the world Theodore moves through. Art direction and costume design create a vision of the future in pastel and primary colors, seamlessly blended with real-life LA (where the film is set), Shanghai and subtle CGI that enhances the cityscapes. Theodore's world is just different enough from our own for us to suspend our disbelief but is relatable enough for us to feel what these characters experience.

The interplay between Theodore and Samantha is so beautifully done that I found myself struggling to believe that Phoenix and Johansson weren't in the same room at the same time. One of the things I loved about Jonze's vision of the future is that the new technology (which we're on the cusp of right now), for all its flaws and ridiculousness, isn't dehumanizing, as it is in the classic dystopian sci-fi view. This is technology made by and for us humans and it is fully informed by and inextricably linked to our humanity. The Siri-like OS's, along with the practically sentient video games Theodore plays and the letters he writes, do in some important ways isolate us in our own little worlds but they also allow us new ways to be human, to connect and to understand and question just what humanity and connection actually are.

A shot of Theodore walking through a plaza talking to Samantha while everyone he passes is busy talking on their headsets shows the 'bubbling' this smart technology all too easily creates, but what defines Samantha is that she isn't just a reflection of what Theodore wants - or what she's been programmed to be. Samantha is independent and constantly evolving, and Jonze stays true to his sci-fi premise by charting that evolution from a convincing human facsimile to a full-fledged human consciousness to something that is both human and far beyond human.

Although Theodore's wounded ex, Cathy, accuses him of not being able to have a 'real' relationship and congratulates him on finally getting what he wants in love with his 'laptop,' the paradox is that Theodore's relationship with Samantha is real. Cathy assumes that Theodore is getting a tailor-made, flawless illusion of intimacy, but the fact is that Samantha challenges Theodore emotionally is a way that is just what Cathy thinks he is protecting himself from - and is just what Theodore needs to grow as a human being.

There are two (virtual) sex scenes here that illustrate how talented Spike Jonze is as a director. The first follows a horny / lonely Theodore as he logs on (via the ever-present ear-piece he wears) to an audio chat with a similarly inclined young lady. They flirt, then quickly move to the verbal down-and-dirty, all of which is pretty hot until she throws in a fantasy / fetish element that is so... out-there that Theodore turns on a dime from turned-on to awkwardly trying to accommodate his virtual lover so that she can finish climaxing and he can get off the line. It's awkward and hilarious and all we see this whole time is Phoenix's facial reactions as the encounter turns from steamy to creepy. As soon as the woman on the other end of the line is done, she is over and out, leaving Theodore puzzled and more than a little perturbed in the darkness of his room. He may have been on the line with another human being, but there has been no meaningful human interaction - he's just been an object in his partner's masturbatory fantasy, not a participant.

By contrast, when Samantha and Theodore make virtual love, it is just that - love. They've gotten to know and trust each other and Jonze makes one simple directorial choice that makes all the difference to how we experience their encounter: the screen fades to black as Samantha and Theodore's talk gets hotter. By removing sight and leaving us with sound, Jonze removes the distance and awkwardness we always feel as an audience watching anyone get turned on without us. He also puts our experience on the same level as Samantha's. It would have been visually easier for Jonze to depict Samantha as a human being through Theodore's subjectivity, but by keeping the visual fantasy in the realm of imagination he lets us experience their love-making on an even plane, respecting Samantha as a living consciousness who does not and cannot have a physical body. Watching anyone have cyber-sex can be the most alienating of viewing experiences, but by bringing us in to Samantha's world and letting us imagine what she and Theodore see as equal partners, Jonze lets us feel the real and virtual nature of their connection.

Romantic comedies are one of the least respected modern film genres and for a very good reason, as they enact the same tired formula of set-up, set-back and pay-off, picking male celebrity from list A and female celebrity from list B. But romantic comedies at their best can take the simplicity of the formula and use it to create something genuinely funny, sexy, inventive and very much about something. "His Girl Friday," "Secretary," "Eternal Sunshine," "Harold and Maude," "Silver Linings Playbook," "Groundhog Day" are some of the finest films ever made. "Her" joins that list as a romantic comedy that flatly ignores the tired, patronizing routine and tells a story that feels fresh and alive. The film's final shot is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen - an image of what it means to be human connected to other humans and alive to the wonder and possibilities of the world.

#20 "Princess Mononoke" (1997)

"Princess Mononoke" is Hayao Miyazaki's epic tale of Ashitaka, a young man in a quasi-mythical ancient Japan, who is cursed after he defends his village from a rampaging animal god-turned-demon in the form of a wounded giant boar. Ashitaka sets off to protect his people by finding out the cause of the animal god's rage and hatred and to try to find a cure to the curse which is spreading through his body like an infectious disease. In the course of his search, he discovers a country torn apart by war and a town on the frontier of the human and natural worlds where iron is forged into guns and bullets, one of which was the cause of the boar-god's madness and eventual death. After saving the lives of two of Iron Town's men, Ashitaka meets the workers, soldiers and leader of the town, Lady Iboshi. He also meets the titular princess, a human girl adopted by the wolf-god who has become a fierce warrior sworn to kill Iboshi and protect the animals' lands and the Forest Spirit who rules over all.

Along with "Spirited Away," "Princess Mononoke" is one of Hayao Miyazaki's unqualified masterpieces. These two films are very different in tone, scope and even intended audience, but at the same time both are so filled with Miyazaki's vision, themes and personality that they show his depth and range as an artist. Miyazaki is often called "Japan's Disney," and while this is a useful shorthand to describe the skill, popularity and cultural relevance of each, looking at these two films side-by-side shows where that comparison breaks down.

Miyazaki's films always feel like the product of an artist not afraid to take risks, to tell the stories that speak most to him and to speak to audiences of very different ages with real respect. Disney's films (both the animator's and the studio's) are among the most beautiful, well-crafted and pleasurable ever made - but there is always an air of calculation. Even with my favorites, like "Aladdin" or "Pinnochio" or "The Jungle Book," I feel like I can hear the studio executives asking "Is the sidekick cute enough? Are there enough songs? Will the audience be laughing here and crying there? Is the ending happy enough? Can we sell enough merchandise with these characters?"

I've never felt that Miyazaki was making that kind of calculation and I think that can be seen in the wide range of his films. "Spirited Away" is a film that can be loved by human beings of all ages, while "Princess Mononoke" could well give younger kids nightmares with its explicit violence - violence that is completely appropriate to its subject matter but has some brief gruesome moments of decapitation and loss of limb.

In Disney's films, nature is, by and large, harmonious, joyful and innocent - in Miyazaki's films nature is a necessary force of balance, but not one to be sentimentalized. It's that force that enslaves Chihiro in "Spirited Away" and it often feels capricious in its demands, just like the bathhouse's owner. In "Princess Mononoke" nature is often literally red in tooth and claw - the humans who are deforesting the ancient woods may be obviously destructive, but the response from the wolves, apes and boars led by their own gods are more than willing to kill whoever they need to to protect their homes.

Both films are informed by a distinctly Japanese animism and hundreds, if not thousands, of years of folklore. Both films are concerned with the delicate balance of nature and mankind and the disastrous result of that balance being disrupted by human modernization. However, where "Spirited Away" feels like a fairytale (or, more accurately, a collection of fairytales) brought to life, "Princess Mononoke" is a powerful blend of primal legend and historical reality.

"Spirited Away" is a kind of domestic epic, where the stakes are so high because they are so personal - we follow Chihiro closely in her journey into the spirit world and want her to be reunited with her parents (even as we fall in love with the world she stumbles into). "Princess Mononoke" is an epic in the classical sense, one in which the stakes are life and death, not just for our hero, but for thousands of humans, creatures and spirits.

"Princess Mononoke" is also a kind of companion piece to Studio Ghibli's first film, "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind." In both films, the result of human's aggressive effort to conquer nature has driven a massively powerful natural force to attack the hometown of the protagonist, whose people have done nothing to provoke it. Like Nausicaa, Ashitaka fights, negotiates and struggle not for one side or the other (certainly not for good over evil) but for a peaceful balance that allows all creatures to live. Also like Nausicaa, Ashitaka is not only willing to give his life for that balance, but is in fact mortally wounded and healed by that force of nature.

And as in all of his films - and very much in contrast to Disney - Miyazaki does not create villains. Miyazaki's work, in the West at least, is generally thought of as charming and benign, but the cruelty and complexity of war is a common theme in many of his films. In his films, war is tragic and causes suffering to all beings; at the same time every faction, every person, has their reasons to fight and believes that what they are doing is what is necessary.

Lady Iboshi (brilliantly voiced by Minnie Driver), the leader of Iron Town, would be the villainness in a Disney film as she destroys the forest, kills animals and leaves behind her fallen men without checking to see if they're actually dead. But she leaves those men after an ambush on a cliff path in order to keep the rest alive and deliver vital supplies to her town. She is a woman ruling in a man's world and she obviously cares about her people, especially the brothel women and lepers she has taken in, put to work and given real respect to for the first time in their lives.

At the same time, the Forest Spirit, who would be all too easy to paint as an angelic - even Christ-like - being, takes the lives of his fiercest warriors and defenders when it is their time and, when mortally wounded, rains down destruction on everyone and everything around him. Even the cynical mercenary "monk" Jigo (a surprisingly appropriate Billy Bob Thornton), who is quite happy to have others kill and be killed in his pursuit of a mountain of gold, is also a wryly ironic realist about the ridiculousness of the world, even his own ambition, and is impossible not to like.

As complex and interesting as the film's themes and characters are, though, "Princess Mononoke" is also a dazzlingly beautiful film, one that creates real feelings of awe and terror and the visceral excitement of movement and action. I've always loved the way that Miyazaki's animation makes the sense of movement, and especially flight, feel so alive in its two dimensions. There's no flight as such in "Princess Mononoke," but the movement of animals and people (especially the impossible acrobatics of Mononoke herself) is thrilling.

This is a film that I keep coming back to and I always notice something amazing and new (to me) each time. This time I was really taken by the animation of Yakul, the red elk that Ashitaka rides throughout the film and who is his closest companion. Yakul is never anthropomorphized or sentimentalized, but the animation of his posture and movement give a real sense of character that is relatable but true to his animal self.

#19 "Moon" (2009)

Driven by ideas and character rather than effects and action, "Moon" is my kind of intelligent sci-fi.

In the near future, Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) is two weeks away from completing a three year contract as the sole technician maintaining a lunar mining base, his only companion the base's AI agent, Gertie (voiced by Kevin Spacey). After he suffers a collision in one of the base's moon buggies, he awakens in the med bay and is told by Gertie (and via video message from corporate HQ) that he must stay inside the base until he is fully recovered. When Sam disobeys the order and goes outside to check out the wreck, he discovers a surviving crew member trapped inside, one who looks exactly like... him.

Directed and adapted from an original story by Duncan Jones (son of the original Space Oddity himself, David Bowie), "Moon"'s set-up could be the outline of a really good "Twilight Zone" episode, and indeed its big plot twist has the same kind of chilling but satisfying pleasure as the best of that series' pay-offs.

What makes "Moon" so much more than that, though, is the way in which it develops the relationships at its core between the two Sams and with Gertie. Sam Rockwell does excellent work playing two very different versions of the same man, and their interactions are technically seamless and emotionally believable. Their relationship is dramatically satisfying, often funny (you may never hear "Walking on Sunshine" the same way again) and in the end very poignant.

This is my third time watching "Moon" and it is definitely a film that rewards multiple viewings. Watching "Moon" for the first time, what really caught me was the central mystery of what the hell is actually going on - and the resolution to that question is very satisfying. However, because the film is so much more than its twist (take note M. Night Shyamalan), knowing what's going on from the beginning makes for an equally engaging but very different experience, one full of dark ironies but also great character details and real emotional depth.

One particularly nice bit of writing and performance is Gertie, brilliantly voiced by Spacey. Gertie exists only as an ever-calm voice, a mobile electronic console, a robotic arm and an emoticon face, but he has real emotional depth and character growth throughout the film. Gertie is in many ways the anti-Hal-9000 ("2001"'s apparently benevolent but murderous AI) and the role that he plays in resolving the Sams' impossible dilemma is just one more part of what makes "Moon" a reminder of what low-budget, high-intelligence sci-fi can be at its best.

#18 "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" (1990)

"Gremlins 2" is a film that's all about its attitude. No, not that try-hard, corporate-approved-rebellion attitude. Oh no, this is very specifically Director Joe Dante's attitude toward what he knew was an utterly unnecessary sequel green-lighted by Warner Brothers (quite possibly in favor of a new project that he actually cared about) to cash in on their 1984 hit. And that attitude goes a little like this: "Alright, you want a Gremlins sequel? I'll give you a goddamn Gremlins sequel, take all your money and you'll pay for a movie with every single crazy idea I can possibly think of, that never stops making fun of itself - and you."

Remember when Conan had his last week on NBC and announced that since he was on his way out he was going to spend every last dime of NBC's money that he could? So his last week was filled with the most outrageously, unjustifiably expensive stunts he and his writing team could think of, like pouring a jeroboam of Veuve Cliquot over an original Picasso while licensing a Rolling Stones song for 1.5 seconds? Yeah, it's kind of like that.

So if Joe Dante wants to start (and end) the film as an old-school Looney Tunes cartoon, then bring on Chuck Jones (yes, the Chuck Jones), Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig. And if Joe Dante wants to have a sex-changed Gremlin with outrageously bee-stung lips all-but-rape Robert Picardo?  Well pucker up, Robert Picardo. If Joe Dante wants to have gremlins burn through a frame of the film and replace the movie with a 1960's nudie picture until Hulk Hogan threatens to kick their asses? Put in the call to Hogan's agent, pronto.

And if Joe Dante wants to have a gremlin drink a brain serum made by mad scientist Christopher Lee and become a pseudo-intellectual voiced by Howie Mandel who expounds upon the next evolutionary steps his species plans to take before bursting into a cover of "New York, New York," supported by a full-on Busby Berkely troupe of gremlin dancers?

Well, then that will be in there, too.

"Gremlins 2" is filled with one idea after another after another, and while it nominally has a plot (something about a Trump-style entrepreneur's ultra-hi-tech skyscraper being infested by the titular critters), it really is just about those increasingly weird, in-jokey moments. If I'd seen it when it had first came out, I would have thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

24 years on, I'd have the say the hit-or-miss jokes end up being more on the 'miss' side - the comedy's too broad, the satire's too scattershot and too obvious and a lot of it's now been done better since (although gremlins taking down an oblivious Leonard Maltin as he gives the original "Gremlins" a snootily thumbs-down review still puts a grin on my face). However, even if the individual gags don't always work, the film's irrepressibly anarchic spirit and cheeky feeding-hand-biting are hard not to love.

#17 "You're Next" (2011)

"You're Next" is a home-invasion / slasher film with a high-concept twist. The "final girl" here isn't just a lucky, virginal escapee from the carnage, she's a nice Australian grad student. A nice Australian grad student, who also happens to be a combat-trained bad-ass and is really, really good at killing the people who are trying to kill her and the family she is staying with.

Billed as a horror-comedy and with great buzz, I was expecting, I don't know, maybe something like "Shaun of the Dead" or "Hot Fuzz" (in its more horrory moments). Oh no no no. There are some dark, dark ironies here and even some lighter, more ridiculous moments once the big plot twist has been revealed (there's motive here, people, not just sadistic malice - though there's plenty of that, too). But, for me, the balance is weighted very heavily toward the 'horror' side of the equation, with a great deal of realistically portrayed brutality and an equal amount of genuinely upsetting cruelty. For me this was a film where the 'comedy' elements actually made the film much more disturbing, not less.

This movie really got under my skin and I think much more than its creators intended it to. Thinking about why it did over the past 24 hours, two moments from my film studies days flashed back.

The first was a class on film comedy, taught by our most brilliant professor, whose main premise was that what you needed to make an audience laugh - particularly at darker material - was to make it 'safe' for them to do so, through visual stylization, physical exaggeration, music and sound design etc. For example, there's nothing particularly hilarious about billions of people dying in a nuclear holocaust, but 'Dr Strangelove' makes us laugh at just that by having Peter Sellers play three roles (i.e wink wink, this is a movie) and by exaggerating the underlying ridiculousness of a world in which either side can destroy the other - and themselves - just by a series of miscommunications, human foibles and personal obsessions.

The other moment that came back was a guest professor talking about creating a class where every week you would watch one horror movie and one musical that were thematically related and look at how the musical treated the subject in a utopian way, while the horror film looked at it through a  dystopian lens. She said that it would be interesting to see how "Easter Parade" celebrates consumerism, while "Dawn of the Dead" explores its rotting cadaver. So you could watch "Cover Girl" on Tuesday celebrating the sheer joy of female exhibitionism and the 'male gaze' and then on Thursday watch "Peeping Tom" for the shadow side of both.

What this got me thinking about is that, while our professor talked about comedy needing to make dark subjects 'safe' - to play up the ridiculous and not 'play the pain' - horror films make a similar deal with their audiences. Oh, to be sure, they're all about playing the pain and the fear, but they still need to be made 'safe' in order for audiences to watch them as entertainment (and horror films are very much entertainment).

A realistic depiction of horrifying violence against believable and likeable people wouldn't be any fun at all - it would just be sickening and traumatic. So horror films have different kinds of 'safety' mechanisms to let us know that it's okay to enjoy the rollercoaster, knowing that what we're seeing isn't real slaughter.

Old-fashioned horror films took place in distant or otherworldly places, like a Transylvanian castle or an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus. Any horror film with a supernatural element is also making it easy for us to remember than no matter how much we may get lost in the moment, in the real world there are no vampires or werewolves or cursed spirits. Horror films with great stylization or 'name' actors can be very effective, but both remind us that we are watching a movie.

Slasher movies take away a great deal of that safety immediately. They take place in a reality much closer to ours, maybe even inside our own homes, on our suburban streets, at the camps we send our kids to. Unless we're on the second or third sequel, the killer is usually not fantastic - they're a vengeful or just plain cruel human being. They also kill without motive - or with a motive that's only revealed in the last reel of the film - and are almost always masked, hidden or hideously deformed. We can't read their expressions or reason with them, which makes the violence they wreak that much more viscerally frightening.

And yet, unlike real and really dangerous creatures like sharks or crocodiles, these masked killers who may be without identity or apparent motive are still human enough to know that what they are doing is deliberately hurting other human beings, i.e. their actions are not just horrific, they're evil.

Not only that, but the way these films are shot, largely as a function of their budget, means that there isn't the kind of stylization of say a Dario Argento giallo, which never lets us forget it's a movie. And with the low budget, comes a lack of recognizable actors - we may have seen Janet Leigh stabbed to death and dumped in the swamp, but we've also just seen her in "Touch of Evil" and will see her again soon in "The Manchurian Candidate." Without the comfort of a familiar face - someone you know is an actor - the unknown actors in a low-budget slasher seem that much more at risk.

But even then, slasher movies are still entertainment, and they do still have their own built-in 'safeties.' For a start, usually unintentionally, the acting is below par at best. We may not know these specific actors, but the flatness or exaggeration of their performance does remind us that they are just acting. The writing often helps here as well, as characters say and do stupid, unrealistic things that remind us that, yeah, this is just a dumb movie after all. And even if the dialogue and acting are decent, characters in these films aren't supposed to be too sympathetic (except, maybe, the 'final girl') - we don't get to know them well, they're often obnoxious, oversexed and / or high, so while we may feel their fear as they're being stalked or wounded, we don't feel too bad about them being bumped off.

And then there are all the conventions - the 'rules' of slasher films so eloquently broken down in "Scream" - that remind us again that, yeah, this is one of those movies. The heavy synth stings, the fake scares, the 'bad behavior' of sex, booze and drugs which will inevitably be violently punished, the warning to not go into that there 'orrible place, the pattern of first victim through to final girl and the violence that may be horrifying but is also ridiculously over the top.

"You're Next" has its share of those conventions. The upbeat, mellow tunes that our first victim puts on the CD player will be the background to a particularly brutal murder for sheer horrific irony. The animal masks the killers wear (tiger, fox and... lamb? OK that last one is a little odd). The foreshadowing and initial fake scares. The killer looming silently in the background as their victim looks the other way. Oh, and the synth stings - don't forget about those. And certainly the violence becomes more and more over the top, crescendoing to death by electric blender.

But unlike a "Friday the 13th" or even "My Bloody Valentine," "You're Next" really got to me and made me wonder if this was the kind of dark place I actually ever wanted to go to. Part of it is the violence itself - it may end up over the top but for much of the film, the wounds look all too real and hideously painful. The film itself is well-shot and well-staged, with some very nicely done bits of 'information suspense,' moments where we know more than the characters in peril (including our 'final girl') - we know where the killer is, what that person's real motive is, but are, of course, powerless to do anything about it.

In the end, though, it really all comes down to the writing and acting. "You're Next" isn't the "American Werewolf in London" and it isn't particularly original, but the dialogue, the actions and the reactions all feel uncomfortably real. On top of that, the fact that this is a family being attacked (even a highly dysfunctional one) makes the horror much closer to the bone emotionally. Typically, the group of teenagers under attack by the killer aren't that deep and don't really know or care that much about each other - their primary reaction is fear and a desire for self-preservation.

"You're Next" twists the emotional knife much deeper as we watch family members and life-partners who know and often care deeply about each other watch the people they love suffer and die. A mother breaks down at the horrific death of her only daughter, sobbing believably and uncontrollably only to be killed by a machete to the face. His throat slit, a father struggles to breathe as he watches in horror as a loved one fails to do anything to help him. And in both cases the performances are really there to support the emotion of the scenes. Yeah, that's not really fun at all - in fact, both moments are genuinely cruel and upsetting.

Once the vulnerable family members are all dead, and nice Ozzie girl, Erin, has started to kill off the villains ("The hunters become.... wait for it..... the hunted!") the film becomes a lot more emotionally bearable, if still physically grueling. Sharni Vinson does a great job of getting us to care about Erin beyond the fact that she's really the only character around long enough for us to attach ourselves to. Vinson sells Erin's good-naturedness and emotional vulnerability as well as her instinctual leadership and complete lethality. She may be a sweetheart outside of combat, but once she's fighting for her life, and the lives of those around her, she really knows how to kill the living hell out of them. None of this half-assed "Oooh, I stabbed the bad guy so he's probably dead and now I'll run off and hope he doesn't get right back up again." Oh no, not this lass - and frankly, after all the awful things the killers have done and all those years of 'final girls' not finishing off the bad guys, these bursts of violence are tremendously cathartic.

So I have to say, while this really wasn't the horror-comedy I was hoping it would be, "You're Next" is a very, very effective movie - one that I haven't been able to shake all day. I don't think I want to see another home-invasion slasher like this one, but I might well come back to this movie again, if only to understand how all the elements work, to be reminded that this is indeed only a film, and to make the film's brand of horror 'safe' to me once again.

#16 "The Bling Ring" (2013)

Based on Nancy Jo Sales' article for "Vanity Fair" about the real-life exploits of a group of casually larcenous high-schoolers in LA, "The Bling Ring" is Sophia Coppola's portrait of joyfully vacuous youth growing up in a place so lavishly rich there are no needs or limits or boundaries, just things you really want and can grab.

Young actors Katie Chang, as Rebecca, and Israel Broussard, as Marc, do a great job of giving depth and feeling to the materialistic and celebrity-obsessed ring-leader and the new-kid-led-astray respectively. Rebecca introduces Marc to the joys of going anywhere and taking anything you want as casually as one friend introducing another to a cool new hobby. But it's Emma Watson who really steals the show as Nicki, a self-obsessed and self-consciously sexy young woman, who is the perfect embodiment of the vapidly hedonistic LA culture that's at the heart of the movie. Nicki knows how to enjoy the material goods while spouting the New-Agey platitudes about "karma" and "life-lessons," but as becomes increasingly clear, her real interest is in attention which she feeds on with a thinly-veiled narcissistic glee.

#15 "The Hangover" (2009)

I know that I'm way late to this particular party but now that I'm here... Well, now that I'm here, I feel a lot like Jay Baruchel arriving at James Franco's party in "This is the End." I've been told this is the place to be, and I see people I know, people I like and everyone looks like they're having such a great time, but... it's not doing much of anything for me.

Don't get me wrong. I chuckled at the chicken strutting across the marble floor in the morning-aftered luxury suite. I giggled when Bradley Cooper drove the stolen police car up the crowded sidewalk on the Strip. And I definitely laughed when, midway through the film, Ed Helms played the piano and improvised a song that summed up all the major plot points so far. Oh, and Zach Galifinakis' "I didn't know they gave out rings at the Holocaust," that caught me off guard and cracked me up. But for most of the movie, particularly the first half, I was just sitting there thinking "OK, something funny's going to happen any moment, right?"

After four years of hype, I was looking forward to this one. The set-up may not be the most original, but it's a good one. But then there was Ed Helms' impossibly awful ball-busting fiancee-to-be who just such a painful, stale cliche. Zach Galifinakis, who I'd thought would be dryly hilarious, was for most of the film just convincingly creepy and off-putting. Bradley Cooper was his ever-loveable self but doesn't carry much of the comedy. Heather Graham in her two brief scenes is sweet as pie. Ed Helms himself wasn't too great either (plot-summing-up song aside) and just spent too much of the time saying "I am so screwed!" or equivalent.

In fact, so much of the film really was just three dudes saying "I can't believe this!", "This is so fucked up!" or getting hit by someone or something. In the end I was just left wondering what a better Writer and Director could do with this set-up: What would Billy Wilder do? How funny would this be if Edgar Wright were behind the camera?

#14 "This is the End" (2013)

2012 was the year in which the ancient Mayans predicted the end of the world - or maybe just told us all to flip to the next page in our eonian calendar.

Indeed, Roland Emmerich's 2009 appropriately titled "2012" took the end of days as seriously as a Roland Emmerich film can take anything, in the form of a disaster movie to (quite literally) end all disaster movies.

But right around and right after the foretold (or not) apocalypse came and went without so much as a Y2K bug, we saw a spate of films including "The World's End," "It's a Disaster," "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" and, of course "This is the End." In these movies, the end of the world is not a religious tribulation or global calamity, but a source of dark, absurdist comedy, a mass memento mori that forces us to reevaluate our lives and see the true colors of our relationships with our friends.

In "This is the End," the apocalypse comes as a twisted take on the (already fairly twisted) Book of Revelations, complete with blue-light rapture for the virtuous, i.e. none of main characters. This old-school biblical Judgment Day has even come to the swanky LA hills, seriously harshing the mellow of a celebrity house-party at James Franco's house - yes, the James Franco - to which Seth Rogen (yes, the Seth Rogen) has dragged his best pal Jay Baruchel (yes, the... well, you get the idea).

With the exception of a couple of bit parts, everyone in "This is the End" plays themselves - well, 'themselves' in big inverted commas. Seth Rogen plays 'Seth Rogen,' Emma Watson plays 'Emma Watson,' Craig Robinson plays 'Craig Robinson,' etc. etc. There's plenty of self-reference to go around here, some of it pretty goddamn hilarious. For example, Seth Rogen and James Franco discuss their ideas for "Pineapple Express 2," and even shoot a handicam version of it, starring themselves and Danny McBride reprising their roles from the original and Woody Harrelson playing himself in the movie within the movie - played by Jonah Hill.

What could have just been obnoxious meta-ness, though, works very well here to further the film's queasy and genuinely unpredictable comedy. The actors play versions of themselves that incorporate their perceived public images, caricature those public images and comedically undermine them (Michael Cera as a coked-out, sexually-harassing jerk is particularly great). These are characters (and the real actors playing them) who know (or know of) each other, some who grew up together and many who have worked together. Much of the film's comedy comes from their exaggerated and invented relationships with each other, many of which have a depth of backstory, both real and fictional.

It's the extremes that "This is the End" takes this fun-house of mirrors, though, that makes it the unique beastie it is. This is the end of the world, after all, and the violence we see as the apocalypse kicks into gear is played for laughs and shock value, often at the same time. The demons, when we see them, are grotesque, frightening and more than a little obscene. James Franco and Danny McBride get into a territorial fight over who has the right to masturbate where, Craig Robinson cravenly leaves a fellow comedian to fall into a fiery pit, Channing Tatum puts on the leather and plays Russian roulette with his film-star persona and then, well... then there's what happens to Jonah Hill.

All the key players do a great job acting 'themselves.' Emma Watson gets a hell of a cameo (all the funnier for being played dead straight) and Jonah Hill gets my favorite line of the movie ("Hello God, it's me. Jonah. From 'Moneyball.'"). But it's Jay Baruchel, playing the closest thing the film has to a protagonist, who was a real discovery for me. In a movie filled with ironic projectile vomiting, ridiculous celebrity deaths and tuxedoed cannibals, Jay gives a surprisingly three-dimensional, compelling performance as, well... 'Jay Baruchel.'

To be honest, I'm still not sure what to make of this movie. It warms the cockles of my jaded heart to see such an utterly imaginative, warped and subversive film coming out of a major Hollywood studio - even more so to see it being rewarded with commercial and critical success. This is a film that is packed with ideas - many of them very clever. Some of the references and absurd situations were genuinely hilarious, some of the in-fighting and scatology (eschatological scatology?) left me cold. Overall, I smiled much more than I laughed out loud, but I did laugh out loud.

This is definitely one that I'll need to watch again.

#13 "Gone Baby Gone" (2007)

"Gone Baby Gone," Ben Affleck's first film as a Director, was the beginning of his critical rehabilitation after his early to mid 00's slump. It sure doesn't feel like a first effort, though. Affleck gets nuanced, three-dimensional performances out of a superb cast and shows rock-solid confidence in his storytelling, letting those performances and an excellent script drive the film, knowing when to get up-close-and-personal with his camera and when to hang back.

Based on the Dennis Lehane novel of the same, "Gone Baby Gone" begins with the unexplained disappearance of a toddler from her mother's apartment in a wrong-side-of-the-tracks Boston neighborhood. The search for three-year-old Amanda McCready, takes a young detective (Casey Affleck) and his girlfriend (Michelle Monaghan) into a larger, darker and more tragic world of corruption, addiction and violence where the road to Hell may very well be paved with good intentions.

Everyone - and I mean everyone - is excellent here, from the heavy-hitters like Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman to the painfully realistic hot mess of a mother played by Amy Ryan. Casey Affleck is perfect as a young man out to find the truth and do the right thing, who is almost physically unable to back down even when finding the truth and doing the right thing may be two entirely different things.

Michelle Monaghan is also excellent playing what could have been a thankless role, as Affleck's romantic and investigative partner, with subtlety and depth of feeling. This is a couple that has real chemistry and Affleck and Monaghan make us feel the love and affection both characters have for each other, even when their relationship is strained to breaking point.

What really makes this film work so damn well is the authenticity and texture of its characters and its settings. Written, directed and starring three men who really know and care about Boston, and filled with real Boston neighborhoods and neighborhood people, "Gone Baby Gone" is terrifying because of quite how plausible it all is. The script may follow a classic (and excellently well-crafted) noir storyline, but from start to finish this story feels like it could - and would - happen with these people and in these places. The reality of the stakes for these characters makes the suspense tangible and gives the brief bursts of violence shocking power and real emotionally impact.

I really like Affleck's second movie, Boston-based heist thriller "The Town," but "Gone Baby Gone" is the more powerful movie. After the excellence of "Argo" I can't wait for Ben Affleck the Director to get back to Beantown.

#12 "Vacancy" (2007)

Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before. A bickering couple with a tragic backstory break down in the American hinterland and check into a motel whose owner turns out to have less than benevolent intentions toward his guests.

"Vacancy" takes up the decades-old urban legend of the great American "snuff" movie  in which the slaughter of unwitting victims by anonymous killers is video-taped for fun and profit. But while the material may not be the most original, Director Nimrod Antal's execution breathes new life into it, making for an unnerving experience that is at points truly disturbing, often darkly comedic and increasingly suspenseful.

Beginning with its distinctive Saul Bass-inspired credit sequence, Antal's film is disciplined and focused. Pacing is key to the Hitchcockian approach and film gives us just enough information to care about the couple in peril and just enough time and empty space for the suspense to work on our nerves without overstaying its welcome.

Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale are believable and even likeable in their roles, even as they begin the film by taking turns to snipe at each other. The plausibility of their performances gives the story a far greater emotional punch than you would reasonably expect from this kind of horror / thriller hybrid. Tight editing, genuinely disturbing sound design (especially the all-too-realistic screams and sobbing from the previous victims) and menacing cinematography with that knows how to use its blacks, help make this that rare genre film that is actually a credit to its genre.

#11 "Spirited Away" (2001)

"Spirited Away" is Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece - a modern-day fairytale about Chihiro, a typical Japanese pre-teen, and her (unplanned) journey into the Japanese spirit world - a kind of Shintoistic land through the looking glass. In Miyazaki's vision, the realm of the spirits, while often beautiful and governed by magic, is neither ethereal or cutesy. Instead, after her parents are turned into pigs for the eating magical food they happen upon, Chihiro finds herself in a very concrete world that is if anything more mundane - and certainly harsher - than her own. Chihiro is neither a princess nor a savior in this reality, but is instead pressed into service as a cleaning maid in a bathhouse for Shintoistic spirits (including among others, radish spirits, river spirits and stink spirits).

So many of Miyazaki's most cherished themes are explored in this film - the delicate balance of humanity and nature, the joy of flight (as Chihiro rides on the back of her dragon friend) and a belief in a fundamental decency that exists inside all human beings. Miyazaki resists easy sentimentality towards his characters, but shows real affection for all of them and does not villainize any of them. Even Yu Baba, Chihiro's primary antagonist and owner of the bathhouse, or the nameless spirit who threatens to eat anything and anyone is his way have complex motivations and redemptive qualities. Unlike Disney's dazzling but calculating sentiment, "Spirited Away," like all of Miyazaki's movies, has a sincere generosity of heart that is deeply moving without ever feeling manipulative.

Then there's the sheer beauty of the animation, music, character  and sound design. Of all the movies I've written about so far, this was the hardest to choose a single screen capture for because there are so many jaw-droppingly beautiful and haunting frames throughout the film. Hit pause at almost any point on the DVD and you have a gorgeously composed, richly detailed still. Miyazaki draws few lines to describe Chihiro, but he knows just which ones to use to delineate her energy, awkwardness, vulnerability and growing courage as she becomes part of the world she has fallen into.

One of the things that makes "Spirited Away" so satisfying is that it takes place in such a fully realized world, one that feels consistent and alive beyond Chihiro's adventures in it. We get a real sense of how the bathhouse works physically, socially and even financially simply by watching Chihiro interact with it. Miyazaki never hits us with an exposition dump and, although the pacing is deliberate and gentle at times, the story keeps moving along. This really is a film that respects and trusts the intelligence of its viewers, whatever age they may be.

This is my fourth time around with "Spirited Away" and I'm still seeing new things with every screening, while being reminded of the familiar pleasures and awe of its world. I found myself wanting to know more about the depth of Japanese mythology and spirituality that informs and enriches the film, but this is such well-crafted visual storytelling that at no time in any of my viewings did I have trouble understanding Chihiro's motivations and the social rules that drive the story.

This is a film that I will keep coming back to, year after year, and can't wait to show to future generations as the children in my life mature.

#10 "A Hard Day's Night" (1964)

Their music may have not yet broken out into the creative insanity of "Sergeant Pepper" or "Magical Mystery Tour," but the Beatles were never more charming than they are in this film.

This is a movie that truly benefits from being almost entirely plotless. With no forced narrative arc and dramatic stakes no higher than making it on time to a TV performance, the Beatles just get to play themselves to a tee. For much of the film, it feels like we're just hanging out with the world's funniest, most loveable and unselfconsciously cool bunch of mates.

The lovingly shot musical numbers wisely avoid flashiness to focus on the Beatles as they play. While the non-musical parts of the film are soaked in an utterly British irony and sense of the absurd,  the musical performances feel completely heartfelt and that combination helps sell the sweetness of the Fab Four.

Meanwhile, the documentary-style footage of the Beatlemaniacs losing it in the presence of their idols along with the staged chase scenes through Liverpool and London (with an affectionate nod to the Keystone Kops) give a great taste of an era.

Richard Lester's direction captures the beginning of true rock-star worship and, with cheeky goodwill, the generation clash between old 'proper' Britishness and the young Liverpuddlian upstarts who just want to be themselves and do their own thing, without taking themselves (or anyone else) too seriously.

Over and above all, what really makes "A Hard Day's Night" work is just how charming and loveable John, Paul, George and Ringo are, riffing off each other, their long-suffering management and Paul's utterly devious, conniving and (by all accounts) 'very clean' grandfather (an unforgettable Wilfrid Brambell).

"A Hard Day's Night" captures the joy of being young, creative and free. My favorite sequence is when the lads break out into a park and playground and just play, observed from the air by overhead passes of a helicopter. Whether or not you love the music or care about the history, this film has an infectious energy that makes it feel fresh even 50 years after its initial release.

#9 "The Box" (2009)

I love "Donnie Darko." It's on my short list of movies that absolutely taped a nerve when I first saw them, that gave me that pulse-quickening sense of 'That's what I want to make.'

"Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut," though, should have served as a warning. While Richard Kelly's preferred version provided some more backstory and intriguing mythology, it was overall a much less good movie than the original theatrical cut. Too much was explained, too much text was added that worked better as mysterious subtext and the thing just ran too damn long.

Those tendencies towards self-indulgence and self-seriousness are front and center in "The Box." Based on (or, I guess, 'very loosely inspired by...' would be more accurate) a Richard Matheson short story that would feel stretched in a half-hour "Twilight Zone" episode, Kelly's film really is the mess critics promised it was on its theatrical run. Although that short story serves as the jumping-off point, the plot quickly becomes a 70's period take on "The Day The Earth Stood Still" mixed with some of the mysticism - and bad 'mystic water' special effects - of "Donnie Darko," the horror elements of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and the mean-spirited morality of the "Saw" movies.

Throughout the film, moment by moment, I just kept thinking "Bullshit!" Starting with the initial dilemma, nothing feels real on a human level, and yet we're supposed to take all of this very seriously indeed and feel some kind of moral chill at the end. But I was never convinced of any of it.

There's nothing wrong with dream logic, but if you're going to go outside of normal human motivation you have to create your own intriguing - and consistent - set of rules for how your world works. Nothing in this movie felt motivated by the characters - everything felt motivated by Kelly's plotting, and that plotting felt both derivative and arbitrary.

Cameron Diaz and James Marsters do the best they can with their ridiculous lines and motivations, investing as much real emotion as they're able into characters whose actions never ring true. The real bright spot, the thing that made me wish Kelly had written at least five more drafts of the script before shooting is Frank Langella, who plays the mysterious presenter of the life-and-death moral dilemma in the titular box. Langella brings a sense of humanity and weary majesty to his role that deserves a much better movie.

I wish Richard Kelly well in his future work. I've heard that his second movie "Southland Tales" ("The Box" being his third) is an even bigger mess than this, but I still want to see it. Although it all goes pear-shaped here, Kelly does march to the beat of his own drum and is willing to take creative risks in pursuit of his vision. I want to think that he can get back to the personal, reality-grounded mysticism and inventiveness of "Donnie Darko," but "The Box" doesn't even come close to it.

#8 "Elf" (2003)

Ever since he became a "name" actor, I've been kind of allergic to Will Ferrell. I mean, "Anchorman" made me laugh a lot more than I'd thought it would, but I'm not rushing out to see the sequel. I hated "Old School" a lot, and it seemed like starting in the middle of the 00's, Ferrell just kept playing the same role in the same movie year after year after year. More than anything else though, the whole man-child as endless source of mirth thing which seems to have been the main-stay of American film comedy for the last decade, has gotten really, really old. And no-one does the man-child thing more naturally than Will Ferrell.

Truth is, though, "Elf" had me laughing my ass off, particularly in the first third of the film where Ferrell is the fish-out-of-water human in an elvish world at the North Pole. And then there's James Caan as a loveable old rogue of a Dad-who-was-never-there-for-me. And Zooey Deschanel - sweet, sweet Zooey Deschanel, who is so very cute as a blonde and actually gets to sing. The very last scene with her in full-on, red-pointie-toe-booted elf costume pouring tea for Papa Elf sent my adorableometer's needle right into the red zone.

*ahem*

This is a genuinely sweet movie that wears its corniness well by not trying to make you take its bucketload of syrup too seriously, while still having enough genuine heart to give you the warm fuzzies. Will Ferrell is perfectly cast as Buddy the elf-raised human (I honestly can't imagine any other actor in this role), Zooey Deschanel is loveable and quirky and very... Deschanelesque and bit parts from Peter Dinklage, Ed Asner and Bob Newhart make this a Christmas film that doesn't suck.

Hell, maybe I should go check out that "Anchorman" sequel...