1. In Bruges
The feature film debut from writer/director Martin McDonagh about two hit men in hiding navigates between hilarity and darkness with ease. Masterful performances by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson take the film into a territory uncommon in modern movies–one where every scene is engrossing and we become blissfully lost to what’s on the screen.
Top 10 Movies by Stover E. Harger III
1. In Bruges
The feature film debut from writer/director Martin McDonagh about two hit men in hiding navigates between hilarity and darkness with ease. Masterful performances by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson take the film into a territory uncommon in modern movies–one where every scene is engrossing and we become blissfully lost to what’s on the screen.
2. Milk
Sean Penn gives the best performance of the year as the legendary Harvey Milk, the first openly gay American to hold a public office who was tragically assassinated by a coworker. The subject matter could have carried the film alone, but the script, performances and direction by Gus Van Sant only add to the material.
3. Religulous
We shouldn’t live in a society where a documentary that criticizes religion is deemed controversial, but we here we are. Bill Maher goes a bit Borat as he tours the world, asking tough questions of all sorts of religious people, both intelligent and well, let’s just say, borderline retarded. Yes, the movie is insightful and important, but it’s also funny as hell.
4. The Dark Knight
Here is a superhero movie that manages to delight not just comic book fans, but even people that hate the genre. That’s because, even more so than Batman Begins, the movie feels like a crime epic that just happens to be about a man who dresses like a bat.
5. Tropic Thunder
Just when most people had written him off, Ben Stiller moves back up the comedy ladder with this action/comedy. The cast, led by Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. as actors accidentally thrown in a real-life action movie, manages to make manic comedy into an art form.
6. Snow Angels
The always-brilliant director David Gordon Green does it again with this deceptively simple story about loss and love in a small town. The film continues to build upon itself, mixing an impending sense of doom with strong human emotions of love and friendship.
7. Up the Yangtze
This documentary about the effects of a dam on rural China shows, without forcing the message on us, the impact of uncaring consumerism and progress on the farming communities of the country. The camera sits back and witnesses the lives of those on a cruise ship as it floats up the river and observes the displaced peasants that live on its shores.
8. Cloverfield
Cloverfield takes a monster-movie plot, and with clever filmmaking tactics, makes it seem real. This is a frightening, and efficient, movie that puts us right there in the horror as we see a monster destroy New York from at first a distance and later, as the characters try to get out of the city, up close.
9. Changeling
This quietly affecting film, from director Clint Eastwood, is a masterful examination of corruption and unending dedication, whether it is for good or evil. The sheer power of some scenes in this film will stick with you for some time.
10. Frost/Nixon
Ron Howard has managed to restage a series of 1977 interviews between TV personality David Frost and disgraced former-President Richard Nixon and craft it into a thrilling cinematic boxing match between two men who have a burning wish to prove that they aren’t who the public thinks they are.
