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2003

Dogville

Whilst I've found the films of Danish director Lars von Trier to be more miss than hit, he rarely makes a film that is anything less than interesting. Even films like Breaking The Waves, which I can't stand, have something to them which intrigues or fascinates me, and when he combines his vast talent to a good story, the results often make for some of the most scrabrously brilliant films ever made. Case in point: Dogville. Nicole Kidman plays a woman who arrives at the pleasant town of Dogville, and is initially welcomed by the residents. Once they realize that she is on the run from something or someone, they begin to exploit her, and von Trier uses the cruelty of the villagers against the innocent Grace to comment on the darker sides of humanity. What's really interesting about the film is that it was made using no sets and very few props, instead having the action take place on a soundstage with lines to indicate walls, windows, tables etc. The performances are so powerful that the conceit quickly fades into the background, allowing the drama to take over.

The Station Agent

The Station Agent sounds like a film that should be terrible. Peter Dinklage plays a dwarf who discovers that one of his friends bequeathed a cabin to him in his will, so he goes to visit the cabin and, despite his prickly persona, winds up becoming friends with some of the locals. On the surface, it feels like an overly familiar story of people coming together and learning lessons, but writer-director Thomas McCarthy - most recently seen acting in films such as 2012 and The Lovely Bones, which he really is too good for - tells the story in such a low-key, charming and funny way that the film winds up being far more subtle and moving than its premise would suggest.

2004

Bad Education

Discovering the work of Spanish film-maker Pedro Almodovar was one of the great revelations for me over the last decade, and whilst I have a great love of the films he has made since Bad Education, this was the one that had the biggest impact on me at the time since it opened up a whole new kind of storytelling to me. It's a thriller about a young director who meets a man who claims to be a childhood friend and tries to sell him a story about how their lives were shaped by the abusive actions of a priest. Playing with notions of truth and reality, Almodovar created a creepy, sexy and sensual film that plays out like a lost Hitchcock - if Hitchcock had a bicurious phase and decided to ditch the blondes for rugged Spaniards. And whose to say he didn't? Not me, because I don't want to get sued. But if anyone else wants to say it, just go right on ahead and say it, crippling legal fees be damned!

Shaun of the Dead

Along with The Simpsons, the sitcom Spaced has probably done more to shape my sense of humor than pretty much anything else. Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson's show about two directionless 20-somethings who pretend to be a couple in order to rent a flat hit a sweet spot of witty, pop culture jokes and genuinely likable characters that all too few shows achieve. It was no surprise, then, that I would be one of the first in line to see Pegg and Spaced director Edgar Wright's first feature film, a rom-zom-com about a directionless 30-something (see how they changed it up for the big screen?) who finds himself caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Incredibly clever and funny, the film works both for fans of zombie films and for people who just like jokes about dogs not being able to look up, two crucial and vast demographics.

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