G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (2009, USA)

Aaaaand, now I’ve seen it all. Fucking Celtic-speaking fighter jet. Avoid at all costs.

The Hurt Locker (2009, USA)

Almost more than war, The Hurt Locker is about three men and their very different ways of coping with insane amounts of stress, day after day. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) is a professional, treating war more or less like any other job. Eldridge (Brian Garaghty) shouldn’t be there at all – he’s not equipped to make the decisions he’s forced to make. For both of them, though, war is – hopefully – only temporary. For James (a truly amazing Jeremy Renner), however, the war has become his obsession, the only way of life that he can handle anymore.

The movie itself is incredibly intense. Structurally, it’s more of a series of sequences than anything really plot-driven as it counts down the days that the members of Bravo Company have left on their rotation ridding Iraq of I.E.D.s. It also examines the impact of James’ force of personality has on an already very unstable situation, how his actions create a ripple effect, destabilizing an already tenuous set of circumstances. One of the best films I’ve seen so far this year.

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008, UK)

Sally Hawkins really is as wonderful as everyone says in Mike Leigh’s bittersweet comedy that examines life through the eyes of a bubbly eternal optimist, and in particular what happens when Poppy (Hawkins) meets her match in a cantankerous driving instructor named Scott (a very dark Eddie Marsan). There’s been a lot written about Poppy’s nature walking a fine line between happiness and insanity, but despite one particularly leading scene, I don’t agree – I think that it more accurately looks at how we deal with happiness as a contemporary society, especially in a culture where pessimism, sarcasm and rejection rule the day.