the movie year. 2008. so far. unannotated.

Here are - to date - my personal film favorites for the first half of 2008.

THE BEST FILM OF THE YEAR: (Drum roll, please!)

* "In Bruges" (Martin McDonagh, Great Britain/Belgium)

And listed in no particular order, the rest:

* "The Visitor" (Tom McCarthy, United States)

* "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"/"4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile" (Cristian Mungiu, Romania)

* "Cassandra’s Dream" (Woody Allen, Great Britain/United States/France)

* "Redbelt"(David Mamet, United States)

* "Love Songs"/"Les Chansons d'amour" (Christophe Honoré, France)

* "Iron Man" (Jon Favreau, United States)

* "Savage Grace" (Tom Kalin, United States/France/Spain)

* "You Don’t Mess with the Zohan" (Dennis Dugan, United States)

* "Roman de Gare" (Claude Lelouch, France)

* "Noise" (Henry Bean, United States)

* "The Bank Job" (Roger Donaldson, Great Britain)

As for as other specifics and details, I'll pass - except to single out Colin Farrell as the year's best actor for his flawless, equally committed back-to-back work in "Cassandra's Dream" and "In Bruges."

Now, on with the rest of the year...

(Artwork: Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in the year's best film, "In Bruges," and the comic/brooding Farrell, the year's best actor)