Past year's:

THANKSGIVING

Watchable. It opens with a brilliant joke by Patrick Dempsey's (wonderful in this role) character Sheriff Newlon knocking on a door looking for a guy who turns out to be a stuffed turkey. Eli Roth's slasher is obviously brutal, unfortunately he tries to emulate his earlier movies so it's not just gore, it's also spew, guts, brains falling out, even baking people alive. At least this sickening violence is sprinkled with language humour, though it all gets lost in the Polish translation. There's social satire too. Some things don't make sense, e.g. putting contact lenses in in the afternoon and without washing hands i.e. in a bedroom. The police officer knows more than he logically should.But the film follows the rules of the genre, with a red herring and the identity of the killer revealed only in the finale. The end credits express gratitude to Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. The post-credit scene is just a cut-out. I hope at least the outcome of this movie will be good for turkeys.

LE COMTE DE MONTE-CRISTO (THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO)

Recommended. It may last 2 hours 58 minutes but it takes great care to present all the events plausibly, which includes extraordinary make-up rendering the story from when the protagonist was 22 to the age of 43 amazingly convincingly. You also get wonderful performances all around, no matter how big or small the role. It's a modern adaptation so there's a surprise in a little side plot. An additional surprise is a beautiful, Arabic rhythm-inspired song (the oriental melody is justified in the plot) which can be heard also during the end credits. The best adaptation of the novel to date.