MATHIEU ALMALRIC

This brilliant French actor is featured in the two best films of the year: KINGS & QUEEN and MUNICH. In K&A, he plays a slightly off cellist who's been in and out of mental hospitals. In one random albeit wonderful sequence, he breakdances in front of his fellow mental hospital patients. It's impressive stuff. Hilarious. Rife with life. And in MUNICH, he plays Louie, a shadowy French informant who sells Avner (a soulful Eric Bana) information regarding the whereabouts of his targets. His performance is subtle, elusive. He has very black eyes which allow him to toe the ambiguity-line quite convincingly. I don't know, but there's just something about his face and height that make him immensely watchable.

So, I've just about seen everything I want to see except THE NEW WORLD & THE INTRUDER (comes out in March over here in we-hate-subtitles-Los-Angeles (not true, but still, come on, THE INTRUDER is a major work by a major filmmaker and so, should've come out the same time it did in NYC)). It was a pretty excellent year for foreign films and a career year for Spielberg who's shown in 2005 that there isn't an American filmmaker that comes close to touching him. Not a one.

LOVE
ALEX