Date: February 22
Location: Clifton Living Room

This goes down as one of the very pleasant surprises of the 2008 movie year. I’d read so many pans of this film that I expected a train wreck, good for some unintentional laughs. Instead I found it to be clever, earnest and lovely. Most of the credit belongs to The Beatles — honestly, how can you go wrong filling a movie start to finish with some of the best music ever committed to record? The versions of the classic songs performed here are wonderful, without exception. Who knew Evan Rachel Wood had such a hauntingly beautiful singing voice? All the performers (most of whom are unknowns) are impressive. And Julie Taymor, definitely one of the finest visual directors working today, pulls out all the stops — the film very much resembles Moulin Rouge in its go-for-broke heart-on-its-sleeve showiness. It has some cornball moments, and the naive kids lose their innocence in the age of Vietnam plot is a bit of a cliche, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Date: February 12
Location: Clifton Living Room

2007 could be remembered as the year of the Western, with astonishing films such as No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood topping critics lists and the Oscars. This gorgeous, meditative tale continues that trend. It’s a shame it was lost in the mix (save for Casey Affleck’s much-deserved Best Supporting Actor nomination). I’ve read and heard much criticism that the film is too “slow” — and I can see that, up to a point. It is definitely long, and more concerned with talk than action. But I was riveted from the first frame to the last.

The movie reminded me a lot of the book Manhunt, about the events surrounding Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. It has a fascinating attention to detail, both of the period and of the circumstances surrounding James’ murder. The events that follow the assassination were particularly fascinating (and new) to me.

Finally, major kudos to cinematographer Roger Deakins, whose work here is at least on par with his amazing work on No Country For Old Men. Deakins has been nominated by the Academy for both films and it will be a crime if he cancels himself out and the trophy goes to somebody else.

Date: February 5
Location: Clifton Living Room

Over the past several years, there’s been a trend of great documentaries about the incredible competition and fascinating characters found in “geek sports” — spelling in Spellbound, crossword puzzles in Wordplay and now old-school video gaming in The King of Kong. This one could be the best of them, largely because it focuses on a single hero and a single villain locked in a heart-pounding battle for that ultimate prize, the highest score in Donkey Kong. At times it plays more like a work of fiction than a documentary — one player is so clearly the protagonist that the filmmakers even play the Rocky theme to highlight his comeback. It’s great fun, but at the same time I wonder if they didn’t go a bit far. Surely the “villain” isn’t as cartoonish as he’s portrayed here. And isn’t it the responsibility of documentary filmmakers to deliver something close to the truth? That’s a debate worth having, but this is a wonderful film regardless.

Date: January 15
Location: Clifton Living Room

What a great year for movies this has been. So great that this powerful, absorbing crime thriller can’t crack my top ten. Viggo Mortensen gives one of the year’s best performances as a driver for the Russian mob caught up in some particularly messy business. Everybody talks about the naked steamroom fight scene, and it is indeed a doozy, but it’s just one aspect of the extraordinary physicality Mortensen brings to this role. Between this film and A History of Violence it seems Cronenberg has found the De Niro to his Scorsese.

Date: January 12
Location: Clifton Living Room

It’s been a good year for short films, from Wes Anderson’s quirky Hotel Chevalier to Pixar’s comic alien abduction film, Lifted and most notably, this collection of 18 short film by 21 directors, each set in a different Parisian neighborhood. Every one is worthy, and some are close to divine. My favorites were Tom Twyker’s hyperactive look at a young romance starring Natalie Portman, Alfonso Cuaron’s one-take street conversation with a twist starring Nick Nolte and Ludivine Sagnier, and Alexander Payne’s deadpan love letter to Paris by a clumsily-accented American mail carrier abroad. The Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, Walter Salles and a bunch of directors I’m not familiar with also turn in memorable films. The film works best as a sort of mix-CD of wonderful short films — and taken as a whole it’s a splendid travelogue for the City of Lights (almost as effective as Ratatouille in that regard).