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2008: Let The Right One In

Vampires. Apparently, they're popular again. Vampires in love. Again, popular. What if I told you that last year, sometime around November, a movie about a young vampire in love with a human came out, and almost nobody saw it? In my wildest dreams, that movie is called Twilight, and it would never show up on this list. Of course, reality is much harsher, as is evidenced by the complete lack of awareness of one of 2008's best films, the Swedish vampire movie Let The Right One In. Swedish vampire movie. How could this one miss? On the one hand, this movie made over $10 million, which isn't that great; it's even worse when you realize that 80% of the film's gross was accrued everywhere except for North America. Still, the film won over enough people in Hollywood for a remake to be coming down the pipe, to be released in 2010.

For now, let me tell you about how undeniably awesome in such unexpected ways is Let The Right One In. The film is set near Stockholm in 1982; the main character is Oskar, a chubby little boy who's constantly bullied at school. One night, at a jungle gym, he meets a new neighbor girl, Eli. She's quiet, pale, but somehow attractive and interested in him. Of course, as he soon finds out, Eli is a vampire, which makes the appearance of her non-vampire companion, Hakan, a lot creepier than he seems at the beginning. And Hakan seems creepy to begin with. In some ways, so is Eli, who likes Oskar enough to not want to turn him into a vampire. Instead, as it seems will happen in the future, she's fine with using him as a kind of lure for her victims. To ruin its surprises would be horrendous; suffice to say, Let The Right One In is the best horror movie of the past few years, truly chilling and unforgettable.

2009: In the Loop

I've just told you that, in my wildest dreams, Twilight flopped and no one ever thought of making a sequel. Another of my wildest dreams involves more people being aware of and in love with the funniest film of 2009. No, it's not The Hangover. In The Loop, a scathing satire of the political spectrum of America and Britain, courtesy of some sharp wits across the pond, is easily one of the smartest, funniest, and crudest films I've seen in a long time. The plot is needlessly and appropriately complicated, but it all starts when a low-level Cabinet Minister (Tom Hollander) says, in a radio interview, that a war (with an unnamed country, but obviously a parallel to Iraq) is "unforeseeable". This single word sets off a chain of events that sets him off to Washington, D.C. to make amends with his American counterparts, and throws him directly in the path of the one man he wants to avoid.

That man is Malcolm Tucker, and in a perfect world, Peter Capaldi, who plays Tucker, would have to cage-fight Christoph Waltz for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. And, for those of us who've seen both In The Loop and Inglourious Basterds, that fight would be surprisingly even. Tucker is one of the most gloriously profane characters in recent memory, a character who, along with a few others from In The Loop, was originally seen on the British TV comedy The Thick Of It. It's a rare actor who can stand up to James Gandolfini (one of the few American actors in the film) and make Tony Soprano quake in his boots for only a second. Though Tucker is not the main character, he's the most memorable, never pausing to insult his peers and superiors, even if it means that he's essentially denying himself any shred of humanity. In The Loop, if it's lucky, will be acknowledged for its screenplay at the Oscars. Lucky, though, doesn't get much for you at the Oscars. When this movie comes out on January 12th, put it on Netflix, along with The Hurt Locker and Moon, if I can throw out a few other great, underrated 2009 flicks. Seriously.

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