Moon (Jones, 2009)

The editing can be listless, the tone is arrhythmic and inconsistent, it’s derivative visually (2001 and even Alien) and thematically (Blade Runner and Solyaris), and the plot is over-reliant on iffy contrivance to shake itself out of stagnation. Moon is hampered by all of this, but, in a way, that all seems trivial next to Rockwell’s performance, his ability to get you invested in his character almost instantly, and the heart-swelling power of some good ol’ fashion humanism. I’m not gonna lie to you: I got a little misty-eyed at the end. And how ’bout that score, eh? But a note to Jones: Quick cuts and time-saving fades are not your friend in a film built up primarily of “little moments” centered around emoting. Learn to love the long take,  because they would have given this film a better sense of eeriness and poignancy.

The Hurt Locker (Bigelow, 2008)

Undercuts the realism it wraps itself in with thematic overkill. Bigelow opens the film with a quote declaring “war a drug,” and then furiously underlines this idea at every available opportunity instead of letting it organically arise out of the events, as if she isn’t confident in the material to convey or the viewer to deduce. The result is simplistic scribbling, with all of the conclusions being drawn for you and revealing themselves as not very insightful. Cornball stereotypes yelling cornball exposition at each other is not my idea of immersive realism.

1930

1. The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg)

2. All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone)

3. L’âge d’or (Luis Buñuel)

4. Monte Carlo (Ernst Lubistch)

5. The Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau)

Honorable Mention: Under the Roofs of Paris (René Clair)

1931

1. M (Fritz Lang)

2. City Lights (Charlie Chaplin)

3. The Public Enemy (William A. Wellman)

4. Little Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy)

5. The Threepenny Opera (G.W. Pabst)

Honorable Mention: La chienne (Jean Renoir), Le million (René Clair)

1932

1. Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubistch)

2. I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (Mervyn LeRoy)

3. Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer)

4. Scarface (Howard Hawks)

5. I Was Born, But… (Yasujiro Ozu)

Honorable Mentions: Bondu Saved From Drowning (Jean Renoir), A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage)

1933

1. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang)

2. Duck Soup (Leo McCarey)

3. 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon)

4. Design for Living (Ernst Lubistch)

5. King Kong (Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack)

1934

1. Man of Aran (Robert J. Flaherty)

2. A Story of Floating Weeds (Yasujiro Ozu)

3. The Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)

4. L’atalante (Jean Vigo)

5. It Happened One Night (Frank Capra)

Honorable Mention: The Scarlet Empress (Josef von Sternberg)

1935

1. The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock)

2. A Night at the Opera (Sam Wood)

3. Mutiny on the Bounty (Frank Lloyd)

4. Top Hat (Mark Sandrich)

5. The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale)

Honorable Mention: Peter Ibbetson (Henry Hathaway)

1936

1. Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin)

2. Dodsworth (William Wyler)

3. The Lower Depths (Jean Renoir)

4. My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava)

5. A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir)

Honorable Mentions: Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock), Fury (Fritz Lang)

1937

1. Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir)

2. You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang)

3. Angel (Ernst Lubitsch)

4. Lost Horizon (Frank Capra)

5. Nothing Sacred (William A. Wellman)