Hi again. Hope you all made it through part 1, because here I am, back again with part two.

So, to recap, it's been:

10 - The Bourne Ultimatum
9 - Sweeney Todd
8 - Michael Clayton
7 - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

And here are numbers 6-3. Read, or don't.

6 - Atonement - Apart from possessing admirable qualities including top-notch writing (adapted from a novel of the same name), cinematography (the amazing scene on the beach at Dunkirk which was shot in one take), acting and directing, this film is unique this year in that it has multiple strong female leads. This was a very manly, very dark, bleak year of film (now that's my kind of movies!), but this movie feels like it could have been made ten or twenty years ago. And that's a good thing. The story is about a love affair (again one of only a few in film this year) between an aristocratic lady and her family gardener (who was also Oxford-educated at her family's expense). Through a series of mishaps and black coincidences, the woman's younger sister sees an act she cannot understand and the man is accused of a horrible crime and locked away. The rest of the film deals with the young girl's realization that she has committed a horrible act that doomed a man and a love affair and her attempts to attone for it. Personally, I thought the coincidences were a bit shoe-horned in for the sake of the story and I also found some too-convenient occurences toward the end. I say this because otherwise this movie would have made it into my top three, hands down. Some people didn't mind these things. You should see this film.

5 - Once - What a beautiful film. The only other love story in the whole lot. It's just about a Dublin street musician who meets a young Czech woman who plays classical music on the piano. They realize they like each other and they can make beautiful music together (sorry, but it's true in this case). So they make a CD which the man intends to sell in London. That's it. That's the whole story. But the music is incredible. Meghan and I immediately downloaded the soundtrack and still listen to it. Falling Slowly is one of my favorite songs of the year. I like this film because it stays small. Look at all of the rest of the films on this list. They are big, they are about ideas, concepts, fate, justice. This movie is about a thing. It's about a love affair that both people know can't last beyond the completion of the album they're working on. It never intends to solve any problems or talk about mortality. I love the movie for just these reasons. Oh and did I mention it's a musical?

4 - Into the Wild - I was moved on a deep level by this film and by its protagonist's decision to turn his back on society and seek his true nature. We are all faced every day with the temptations and traps of society and we all know with each new purchase or activity we add another layer between ourselves and our essential nature. But we are all drawn in anyway. This film is the story of Chris McCandless as played by Emile Hirsch, who had a fierce determination to resist that temptation at all costs. But the film is not just about his Thoreau-like quest to reinvent himself, it also shows the human cost of his decision and how selfish and self-indulgent his actions can seem. At almost every stage along his journey Hirsch is met with kind-hearted people who seem more than willing to take him in and share their lives with him. He leaves them all behind, usually without a goodbye as he slips out in the night. The film is partially voiced by his sister with whom he seems to have had a very close and loving relationship and yet who never receives one word of his whereabouts. She is alternately hurt by his lack of contact and worried sick about his safety. Other people he meets along the way are a hippie couple who share many of his ideals and seem willing to take him in a surrogate son, and a young woman who sees in him a potential soulmate. Most heartbreaking of all is his relationship with an elderly man with whom he lives for a few months who offers to adopt him as a grandson. He turns his back on all of these people. Ultimately, what moves me about this film is this dual exploration of our humanity and how we are all individuals but how we are all connected as well.

3 - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - This film is a nuanced look at the culture of celebrity worship cleverly mascarading as a Western. The movie concerns the interaction between Pitt's Jesse James and his hero-worhsippingest fan Robert Ford who has been obsessed with James since he was a little kid. In real life, Brad Pitt is as famous for his movies as he is for his off-screen legend, and possibly as a consequence, this may be his best performance since Fight Club. I know you wouldn't think it, but Brad Pitt gives a terrifically menacing performance as a man who is feared much more than he is respected because his henchman and hangers-on know he will kill any and all of them at the drop of a hat. He seems to take pleasure in torturing their psyches like a cat playing with a mouse before he kills it. Meanwhile, Casey Affleck is surprsingly tremendous as Robert Ford the little boy lost who loves the legend more than the man. Eventually mocked and publicly ridiculed by James, Ford turns against him and assassinates him in his own house. Ford expects to be publicly praised for this action, but instead lives to hear himself mocked and called a coward. The film is excellently cast and assuredly directed by Andrew Dominik. The length turned off some people but the director uses this to convey the growing sense of menace and dread among the claustrophobic band of outlaws surrounding the most feared/worshipped outlaw/hero in the US.