Best films I've seen this year

I don't see many new great films anymore. I watched most of the backlog years ago. Only one or two new noteworthy films are released every year. However, I've managed to watch some really good films this year. They are:

El Norte: About Guatemalans that escape to the US via Mexico. Probably the best film I've ever seen about a typical experience of an asylum seeker.

12 Angry Men: A jury discuss a murder they're to give a verdict on. They're stuck in a hot room debating the various accounts of the witnesses. The film must be every liberals favourite film, but that doesn't stop it from being a really exciting unravelling of preconceived ideas. "Nobody wears eyeglasses to bed."

Night of the Living Dead: Original zombie film. It has a simple but really effective plot. Extremely tense.

The Lady Eve: It's a rom com. There are a few cheesy bits, but it's generally pretty funny and endearing.

Frozen Planet (not a film): A nature documentary series about life in the Arctic and Antarctic. It made me appreciate just how utterly brutal life in the natural environment is for every living creature except (most) humans (and some pets). Nature is cruel, violent, and completely indifferent. Creatures spend their lives hungry, hunted, cold and alone.

It made fully realise that rather than trying to emulate (bourgeois rhetoric on markets), admire (people who like natural/organic products), or lament the loss of nature (millenarian and some Green movements) we should thank our lucky stars that we're somewhat removed from that pitiless existence. We should do everything we can to reject the laws of nature (that doesn't, in turn, threaten our existence).

Kick Ass

Kick Ass: Clever combination of Watchmen and The Professional. Excellent, ironic portrayal of vigilante fascism. Love the controversy and critical response sections on wikipedia. E.g.

Roger Ebert gave the film one out of four stars. He called the film "morally reprehensible", appalled by the violent scenes in which an 11-year-old girl murders dozens of gang members and is then almost beaten to death by an adult man. "When kids in the age range of this movie's home video audience are shooting one another every day in America, that kind of stops being funny."

Does it Robert? Does it really? 'Cause, you know, I was laughing quite a bit through those scenes.

Food Inc.

One of the best documentaries about the food industry I've seen. A US bias, but most of it applies to Australia (feed lots, GM soy, production houses for broilers, etc.). The annoying organic farmers and family farmers don't dominate.

This doco beats, by a long margin, anything Michael Moore could ever do. Really interesting.