At this time, I offer a mere list, except for a note on “Ida.” I’ll return to the list and annotate it once my fingers recover from premature ribbon-tying and tree-dressing, as well as the other “paralyzing joys of the season” (to quote James Agee).
Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida” is by far the best movie of the year. “I’m not emotionally excited by the power of cinema’s tricks anymore,” Pawlikowski has said, and, at first, the stillness and concentration of his images (the move is set in Communist Poland, in 1961) is startling; then fascinating; then awe-inducing. Ida (Agata Trzebuchowska), the young novice ordered by her Mother Superior to investigate her past