1. Drive - Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Oscar Issac, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks
Drive is simply a revolutionary motion picture, literally everything about this movie is spectacular. During each viewing (there have been a total of three, for me) it grabs me from the very start untill the credits roll, it is so incredibly engaging. It's one of the best directed movies ever, let alone released this year. A golden script features limited dialogue for star Ryan Gosling, but that is what makes his performance so captivating. The sexual tension between him and Carey Mulligan is radiates intensely. The shocking and brutal violence happens in so many quick spurts that sometimes you might not even realize what just happened. Plus, how can you not be both wowed and scared by Albert Brooks as villain Bernie Rose, such an amazingly twisted and spontaneous villain (Brooks was robbed of an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor). The film's greatest aspect though is it's soundtrack composed by Cliff Martinez. Martinez's Brian Eno-inspired score creates such an atmosphere and sets so many different tones, it's an essential component, a different soundtrack would never have worked (I have actually seen a specific cut that contains some tracks from Trent Reznor's The Social Network soundtrack and it just does not work). Any non-original tracks from the soundtrack are also incorporated flawlessly, like Kavinsky's "Nightcall" during the opening credits (one of the best opening credits sequences in recent memory) and College's "Real Hero" utilized as Gosling's character's theme song. It's beautiful, retro and contemporary, as well as very stylized. Drive is a masterful film, it's a movie that benefits from a proper viewing as well, hopefully it will be released back into theaters in the future. There will never be anything in the future that can replicate the spectacular nature of Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive.
But now what do the Academy Awards really mean? Do five nominees in every category (or nine when discussing Best Picture) really encompass all of the great movies and performances and technical work the year had to offer? No, definitely not.
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