A tiny, no-budget character study that says nothing and everything about the current state of this country. Oldham is astonishing. Yo La Tengo craft their finest film score yet.

Ryan Gosling..Believe the Hype! I remember taking Mickey's hits before working with kinder-kids at the YMCA (03-04'), so this film was a mirror at times. I was also blastin' Broken Social Scene back then..so it was even more personal for me.

That line between madness and genius is a fine, thin, stringy one. You can't ignore DJ's music forever; it'll find you in the end.

Lets be clear: "Mystic River", "Million $ Baby" and "Flags of the Fathers" were all overrated. This is Clint Eastwood's first masterpiece. A slow, somber meditation on inevitable mortality blanketed in doom and shadow light.

(Hon Mention) Ashley Judd's first great role since "Ruby in Paradise"..and it was worth the wait. Is that Joey Adams behind the camera? Wow! She's good.

(Hon Mention) Hooks you on edge from the first frame. Gets all the heroism and sympathy exactly right. Didn't like "Bourne Supremacy" but I'm a Greengrass fan now..the nonpro cast amazes.

(Hon Mention) "Inland Empire" And speaking of David Lynch...try watching this three hour mish-mash of nightmares and dreamscapes punctuated by hair-trigger digitricks, figures in bunny suits, and the fantastic talents of miss Laura Dern. Blissfully unexplainable!

(Hon Mention) We've seen this film before (wasn't it called "Down To the Bone"?) but Maggie Gyllenhaal transcends indiefilm-cliche with her fearless, all-out performance as a drug-addled adult child...if only her lil bro could be so talented.