The sensation of remembering incidents (and the mental process which changes these treasured moments by sensationalizing and bookmarking them) is an unconscious progression which takes conscious acknowledgment to comprehend. Sofia Coppola’s adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides novel is told by the collective consciousness of four boys who cling to their tragic - yet beautiful - recollections of the Lisbon girls, five sisters who had shaped their lives. The young writer-director uses this anamnesis to create a numbing culmination of narrator reliability - and the artful frailty it inspires.

Full of cinematic rarities and booming with loud music, thrillingly authentic spotlight-cast images of a plethora of idols take shape as Cameron Crowe's entirely engaging memoir collects the magical atmosphere of the cool and the uncool and creates something entirely new and alive. Wonderful performances from Patrick Fugit, Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson and Phillip Seymour Hoffman only intensify the high you get from this funny, moving, forget-yourself-from-frame-one piece of film bliss.

5. Wonder Boys

What makes ‘Wonder Boys’ great - as opposed to just good - is that it is honest and lived in and that, so early in its duration, it was leaving its impression on me. When it was over, I was jubilant to have been within its embrace. The gray-speckled, joint-puffing literature professor Grady Tripp (Douglas) is a teacher skillfully teetering the fine line between inspiring and being inspired. Isn't it something to watch a teacher being taught? Director Curtis Hanson turns the intensity down so low that the film glides on a pleasant note of realism in so much as it earns it passion; as vigor has been left out of most of the movie (purposefully), when it is introduced briefly - it is breathtaking.

"Wow, Rob Gordon. The Rob Gordon", chuckles Catherine Zeta-Jones to John Cusack, whose Rob Gordon surely deserves that italicized status:  Rob is as prolific as Cusack's own Lloyd Dobbler of 'Say Anything'. The first time I saw the film, my attention was dead-center on it's sympathetic portrayal of material fetishists. Another two viewings and I'd revel in incisive observations like this: "Of course you do, you have great lingerie, but you also have the cotton panties that have been washed a million times and the crotch has worn out. And so do they [the women he desires], but it's not in the fantasy". Direct address, coined for the first time in years, in Rob's final romantic note: "I've started to make a tape. In my head. For Laura. Full of stuff she'd like. For the first time ever, I can sort of see how it's done".

Mamet writes 'State and Main' as a hyperbole; a scathing horror show that comes off the very picture of a feather light, quintessential "How Hollywood Ruined America" statement. And as a statement, no better than this troupe of actors (a number of them Mamet regulars), all of whom wrap the dry, acerbic nature of Mamet's to-the-point dialogue around their tongues with an ease solidifying dishonest directors (Macy), controlling producers (Paymer), pederast actors (Baldwin), indecisive/prudish actresses (Parker, lampooning herself it seems), Hollywood-political connectors (Durning, Gregg) and the townies - my God, the townies! Excessive Mayberry pedastaling aside, this is an hilarious, wonderfully deceptive romp. Go you huskies!

While Mamet creates his own rut in movies, one that seems discernibly stagy; playwright Kenneth Lonergan forges entirely naturalistic tragicomedy out of his almost entirely theatrically infused writing style. With more than 200 scenes, this could not have been performed on a stage comfortably. This is part of what makes it so wonderful - it's a departure that arrives triumphantly. Actors Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney create long lasting, memorably quirky characters. Found myself confronted with the opportunity to laugh out loud and get mushy inside; this is a peppier but less profound riff on the "long lost sibling comes of age late in the game" theme and a funny, funny film to boot. The comedy here comes from delight and a deeper resonance and intimacy we are invited to experience within the world of the film. When these characters molest our emotions, we almost get the sense that Lonergan full well intended whatever reaction we muster.

Where a lesser director would have undersold the interim and beefed up the martial arts in hopes to at least win the subtitle-hating crowd (as we pesky, bratty Americans tend to be), Ang Lee pays ample attention to both sides of the coin (although the first time these characters start shooting their fists of fury and feet of fire at each other, top speed in tow, you will sit upright with awe). He's skillfully engaging every inch of your being, thrusting you into another world and allowing you to stagger back into reality later as if you were in an amnesia-induced trance. What really counts is how alive and youthfully giddy you feel as you leave the theater. 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' careens into our consciousness - energizing us, yet allowing us to sustain the serenity of a silent mist.

01. The Virgin Suicides - Sofia Coppola
02. Almost Famous - Cameron Crowe
03. George Washington - David Gordon Green
04. An Affair of Love - Frederic Fonteyne
05. Wonder Boys - Curtis Hanson
06. High Fidelity - Stephen Frears
07. State and Main - David Mamet
08. You Can Count on Me - Kenneth Lonergan
09. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Ang Lee
10. The House of Mirth - Terence Davies

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Runners Up

'Jesus' Son' enjoys a range of feelings genuinely - all of them vivid and vibrant, as if no other movie had made us laugh, cry or shudder before. Its as funny as it is sad; as cathartic as it is heartbreaking; exciting as it is serene and, through it all, if there's a string that holds the wayward, thatched strands of the somber Denis Leary, the down-to-earth freak out Samantha Morton, the doped and dopey Jack Black, the beaten feistiness of Dennis Hopper and the laid-up heart of Holly Hunter - - - it must be Billy Crudup, still the front-runner for best actor of the year in the court of public opinion according to the high judge. Me. (And as an afterthought, it doesn't disturb the genius of the book by taking too many liberties; but then it doesn't dull the experience by presenting a line-by-line adaptation, either. Sort of a trick, that.)

Severely funny meditation on circumstance, celebration of conflict, live action cartoon; ‘Adrenaline Drive’ may be the most ecstatic and tirelessly alive film I've seen all year. It's a particular kind of funny. It's not “laugh track” funny, but a farcical caricature of colorful characters and devilishly satisfying occurrences mixed up in a romantic comedy slathered on a slapstick-rich, quasi-silent film meshed with comic timing and careful attention to reaction. Of all the films promising laughs which I saw this year, 'Adrenaline Drive' yanked my chain like no American comedy promising yuks has succeeded in years.

An entertaining epic of top drawer improvisational direction that mixes martyrdom and musical into a revoltingly exciting reflection on the healing powers of fantasy. Full of strong performances- especially singer Bjork (as Selma) - who is at once innocently reserved and ecstatically passionate. The blind Selma has that Joan of Arc gaze. She doesn't just hear voices, she sings them like her very life depended upon it.

This nearly airtight crucible of single-strand, straight-shooting absorption gave me a sharp, heart attack racing of my innards as well as a wonderful sigh of inner relief mixed with adrenaline gush.  Bruce Greenwood is JFK, at the center of this three ring circus, directing the lions as they close in on him with a swift, assured genius and the honest, tired vigor of his own personal battle with being a natural politician, leader and human being.

A wonderfully surreal biopic of Reinaldo Arenas, directed with a painter's attention to the undefined montage and lulling literary bliss of the Cuban Revolution. Arenas is played with a beautiful harmony by Javier Bardem, whose anti-progressive, almost timeless appearance over thirty years rings an effectively nice off-key note.

In luminous black and white emerges a beautifully detached love story, intimately constructing clever, double-edged swords of amorousness and professionalism. Softly evokes French new wave style and deftly manipulates the metaphoric goldmine knife throwing affords it. Entirely satisfying glitz.

A mesmerizing, cathartic epic. Examining the contradictory "war" on drugs is one thing. Examining it with the cubist thumb of a filmmaker who, last year, released a borderline-experimental time-shifting revenge fantasy called 'The Limey' and, who, earlier this year, released a smart, tonal, feel-good detective story called 'Erin Brockovich' - - - this is another thing entirely. CCombining the elements of both pictures (and a performance by Benecio Del Toro that is, quite simply, miraculous), Soderbergh is in full control of his craft.

'Mifune' is the best Dogme film yet; a labor of love; a piece that could only have come from gradual experimentation bent on melding the craft and precision of a liberating doodle into an art form of genre less movie magic. Not only does it nail the romantic comedy and it's tragic strands, 'Mifune' is a film that uses reality to paint with all the colors of the dull, grainy rainbow we call life.

An alternately reverent and unsettling performative documentary, 'Requiem For a Dream' may be the most physically and emotionally demanding film to be released in theaters since 'Saving Private Ryan'. The technically stunning anti-drug film synthesizes shock value and a good, honest directive into something that never feels forced or pushy - now that's an achievement.

The end result of Yang's near masterpiece is a quiet, almost completely relaxed feeling that centers us in the matters of the universe, matters concerning the everyday life setting with an anti-ephiphany strategy of quiet observation in the way a collection of photographs, each with a vivid, attached memory would look if assembled onscreen

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The Year's Worst

1. Drink bottles of shampoo in effort to kill themselves in
        ('Down to You')
2. Gush, overact, have slow-motion sex and then die in
        ('Here on Earth')
3. Pose as a thriller when instead, its actually quite sedating is
        ('The Skulls')

1. Forget the Thatcher era and stop billing familial abuse as "funny".
        ('Billy Elliot', 'East is East')
2. Stop directing in America already. One bomb should be enough, dont'cha think?
        ('The Beach')
3. Give me my paycheck and don't bother me with pith like logic - signed, Ewan.
        ('Eye of the Beholder')

1. The movie is so utterly bad, but the visuals are kinda not terrible
        ('Hollow Man')
2. The convention is staggering. The visuals are, eh, okay.
        ('The Cell', 'Supernova')
3. The story was stolen. And it's still boring. And the visuals are just plain ugly.
        ('Dinosaur')
4. I remember these effects from the original. And the jokes are the same too!
        ('Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps')

1. Goodness doesn't pay. Cynicism rules. Are we clear?
        ('Pay it Forward')
2. Addiction is the easiest thing in the world to kick. Especially in makeup.
        ('28 Days')
3. Oh, you're dying - - - hold on, let me go make amends with my long lost daughter.
        ('Autumn in New York')

1. All my plot strands are stuck together - - - and now they make no sense. Darn..
        ('The Way of the Gun')
2. We can't have a year in movies without importing an Asian action star and      humiliating him. Can we use a music video director? They work so cheap.
        ('Romeo Must Die')
3. The movie is about a badass police detective. But we're interested in the plot.
        ('Shaft')
4. "The Saturday Game"? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA (pause for breath) HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA (pause to cough profusely) HA HA HA HA HA
        ('Mystery, Alaska')
5. Yeah, we're thrice removed so its artsy now, right? Right? Is anybody there?
        ('Scream 3')

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The Ten Worst Films of the Year

At first, when I saw the trailers, I thought it was Madonna and Rupert Everett pimping their real-life personas. Then, when I actually watched this tripe, it turned out not to be merely offensive, not to be simply written poorly, not just unpleasant - this is a film that sets the bar for any Kramer vs. Kramer knock-offs, Hollywood gay-bash fests and movies that contain celebrities eager to exploit their real life labels.

I don't care what series of highly popular (among whom, you ask?) films you are concluding. The only movie that gets away with making absolutely no friggin' sense until mid-mark is The French Connection.

When a bad college film project ends and you say to yourself, "Oh, it was just some college kids shooting a movie, the acting was supposed to be that bad", the bad acting and repetitive, nauseating hokum is supposed to cease. Not always the case, it seems.

After three or four set-ups that are engineered to get Martin Lawrence inside that damn "rubber Mama suit", you'd expect the rest of the movie to cheerfully milk this premise. Instead, it retreads 'Blue Streak' in being both unfunny and patronizing. That, and it takes poor Paul Giamatti (who just wanted a paycheck) to the bottom with it. I didn't laugh once. Not once.

I think people who watch TV movies and have emotions like sadness, anger, happiness and even jovial laughter are truly not in touch with reality. Those people would gladly use all seven reels of Bless the Child as their personal toilet. Are we really in the market for a "satan-cult kidnapping the chosen one" yarn with a performance by Kim Basinger that is only less wooden than the one by Rufus Sewell (who is only superceded in overall badness only by Christina Ricci, whom we clap for when she finds herself decapitated)?

Feels like it was thrown together in a month; I mean by that that the special effects, the script (especially), the camerawork, the acting, the staging, the unbelievably irritating little risks they take - which all fail, by the way....the onlly thing stopping this travesty of a motion picture from sharing the 'F' spot with the other three movies is the occasional, very, very rare one-liner. Clint hits a new low.

7. Mission to Mars

The premiere collection of clichedom,  insincerity,  sluggish acting, A-list actors humiliating themselves amid dead momentum and an ending to another movie that mysteriously contains the same characters and which picks up where 'Mission to Mars' left off. Have a great ride, Jim.

Feather-light exploitation that fails on every level. Piper Perabo is the worst actress working today. I hope she's proud. Another of Bruckheimer's money-making schemes that falls so flat on its ass, I wonder if he even green-lighted it - - - instead, he said, "Tits! Music! Bar! Give me whatever you can find!".

No way is Janusz Kaminski going to get away with using ninety minutes of my time as his personal horror image experimentation ground. When a movie opens as if it has been in progress for twenty minutes and, even though it is god-awful, closes as if it has twenty minutes more to go - - - you begin searching for a pen to warn Spielberg against using this criminal as a DP again.

Lest you think I forgot about January's flub: Frankenheimer has a long name and I like to say it. And ending up in that theater because his last movie had some promising car chases is as ludicrous as deciding to see a film because the director has a playfully long and textured last name that resembles a movie monster dragged through the German dictionary.