Perhaps the most ingenious part of Whitacre’s affect (and the film) is his stream-of-consciousness inner monologue. He wonders about tie patterns, spews factoids about polar bears, and wrestles with the German language as he bumbles deeper into an FBI investigation he instigated. Whitacre is the ultimate unreliable narrator—someone whose world is entirely in his head, and whose actions are simply inconsequential.

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The film is truly gorgeous to behold. Starz Animation has officially given Pixar a run for its money. Each surface is textured minutely; the film feels so real the audience could almost reach into the screen and scoop up a stitchpunk for themselves. The spooky brain monster against which the creatures must defend themselves is reminiscent of the machines in The Matrix—a glowing, glaring red eye centered in a mass of metallic tentacles. Though the voice actors are talented, the dialogue is few, far between, and unimportant to the film’s plot. This movie is eye candy.

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From pink to black and from Paris to Bryant Park, this flashy documentary by R.J. Cutler (The War Room) lets us peep behind the veil of Vogue and glimpse into both the goblins and the glory of glamour. Following the magazine’s steadfast fury to produce its largest page-count ever in 2007 (a whopping 840), we see what it takes to work for a high-end fashion publication, but more importantly we get a portrait of the ice-queen in charge.

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Though his oeuvre includes everything from melodrama to martial arts, Lee’s most endearing projects are intimate, sensible, plausible stories about people who might as well be your parents, your friends, or your schoolteacher. Taking Woodstock is based firmly in reality, but the film isn’t about one character’s journey: it’s a coming-of-age story about America.

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Smart though Tarantino may be, his self-aggrandizing filmic techniques grow old. Placing arrows and title cards in the frame doesn’t make it more entertaining. By continuously removing the audience from the narrative, Tarantino seemed to say “LOOK! This is a MOVIE! This is MY movie!”

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It is perhaps the most dystopian vision of alien contact ever filmed: the aliens are not the enemy, we are. The humans in the film are horrid, cruel stereotypes, laughing as alien eggs pop like popcorn, shooting creatures at random, and torturing an innocent man to discover the meaning of the alien weapons. The aliens (one of whom is Christopher Johnson, a decidedly nondescript and very American name) are scammed, abused and tortured, living in a horrendous slum. Unlike in Independence Day, The Day the Earth Stood Still, or any number of other self-congratulatory sci-fi films, we are not fighting to save ourselves from these unthinkably pitiful creatures. We’re using, torturing, and abusing them.

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In the last scene of the film, Julie says to Eric, “She saved me.” Eric responds, “You saved yourself.” This, more than anything, is truly significant: feminine strength and passion are a force to be reckoned with—and balancing personal aspirations with blissful relationships is more than possible: it’s worth the struggle. Julie & Julia is a valentine to female independence, an ode to striving for what you truly enjoy.

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Shocking and heartbreaking, Food, Inc. gives us those nitty-gritty details of how a tomato is grown or how a chicken is raised. It reveals that every step of the process from farm to factory to functional product is not as scrupulously regulated as government organizations like the USDA and the FDA would have you believe. According to Pollan, “the industrial food system is always looking for greater efficiency. But each new step in efficiency leads to problems.”

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“I worry about nothing except doing work that I like and that I look at as quality work. I don’t think of legacies or what people think. They are bold moves because I’ve found I can get the most attention with doing things that people don’t expect of me. It’s just the way it is.”

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Rita murmured in that, silky, sultry voice from so very long ago, “Enough crap, big boy. Let’s get out of here!” She slid off her stool and thrust her arm under mine. I heard whispered words somewhere inside my head, O, heart, be still! The best I could manage was a stammer, “Miss Hayworth, I came with my wife. That’s her there, with Margo and Eddie.”

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