The Movie Club

Every year, Slate's Movie Club brings together film critics to discuss the year in movies. This year, Slate critic Dana Stevens is joined by Carina Chocano (Los Angeles Times), Wesley Morris (Boston Globe), and Keith Phipps (The Onion).

Dana Stevens is Slate's movie critic. You can write her at . Carina Chocano is a movie critic at the Los Angeles Times. Wesley Morris is a movie critic at the Boston Globe. Keith Phipps writes about movies for The A.V. Club, the entertainment section of The Onion.

Who Are These People?

Click to read 10-best movie lists from Dana Stevens, Wesley Morris, Keith Phipps, and Carina Chocano.

Wesley, Dana, Carina, and everyone,

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Well, I don't want to go down as the Lake House guy. I liked it just fine, but it was probably something like the 47^th-best film I saw last year. I'll go down swinging for The Departed, however, whose pop-crackle stirred up a haze of moral confusion. Sure, Nicholson does little more than play Satan in the shape of Jack Nicholson, but Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio take Scorsese's career-long concern with men who lose themselves chasing the American dream in piles of cash, stacks of guns, and smoke-filled backrooms into what feels like its endgame. Nobody here gets out alive.

David Denby has an alarming/alarmist piece in the current New Yorker worrying about the future of film-going, given that the coming generation is "platform agnostic": They're just as has happy watching something on their iPod as in a theater. It's a legitimate concern, but I think the worrying has its limits. I can't imagine anyone getting the same buzz off watching a film downloaded on a whim to an iPod that I got seeing the movies that drove me into this career. I left The Departed shaken, which is something I hadn't expected going in, just as I hadn't expected to be as moved as I was by any of the great films I saw this year. It's easy to get beaten down by the movies—did anyone else see Smokin' Aces yet?—but there was a lot out there this year to shock the faith back into even the most skeptical filmgoers. I look forward to another year at the movies. See you there.

Best,
Keith

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Carina Chocano is a movie critic at the Los Angeles Times. Wesley Morris is a film critic for the Boston Globe. Keith Phipps writes about movies for and edits the A.V. Club. He's also one of the editors and authors of Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists. Dana Stevens is Slate's movie critic.

Photograph on Slate's home page of Robert Altman by Vince Bucci/Getty Images. Still from Flags of Our Fathers copyright DreamWorks and Warner Bros. Entertainment. All rights reserved. Photograph of couple looking up at marquee on the Slate home page by Patrik Giardino/Corbis.

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