By DAVID N. BUTTERWORTH
Offoffoff.com

• AKA British director Duncan Roy's bold experimental "triptych" — three adjacent images presented onscreen simultaneously — plays like a cross between "Timecode" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley," with Matthew Leitch literally left, right, *and* center as the troubled young opportunist who insinuates himself into upper-crust society in order to escape his brutish, working-class upbringings. With three distinct frames of reference, Roy is able to shape his film like no other, crafting a compelling tale of human frailty and the hunger for power that challenges us in truly new and exciting ways. • Dogville With its entire action constrained to a minimalist set representing a 1930s Colorado community of chalk outlines, meager furniture, and repressed human souls, Lars von Trier's "Dogville" is undeniably different. It's also controversial, challenging, unique, theatrical, allegorical, artificial, anti-American, anti-bourgeois, anti-Hollywood, striking, stagy, profound, pretentious, daring, unsubtle and, with a running time of a fraction under three hours, certainly long. Yet it further cements von Trier's reputation as a producer of edgy, thought-provoking, and systematically diverse films. With Paul Bettany and Nicole Kidman. • The Door in the Floor Perhaps the best adaptation yet of a John Irving novel (and that includes the stellar "The World According to Garp" and "The Cider House Rules"). Rookie director Tod Williams adapts the first third of Irving's "A Widow for One Year," condensing it into a remarkable drama that brings out the absolute best in his performers. These include Kim Basinger as a mother near comatose from the tragic death of her two teenage sons, Jon Foster as the summer intern who becomes infatuated with her, and (especially) Jeff Bridges in an Oscar-worthy turn as the grizzled husband/author/pornographer Ted Cole. • Garden State Here, at last, is a film that's as concise and creative as its spectacular trailer (unlike those that excerpt all of the funny bits, all of the touching bits, all of the art shots, and all of the eclectic songs on the soundtrack for a one-minute teaser). Written by, directed by, and starring Zach Braff (from TV's "Scrubs"), "Garden State" is a consistently inventive blend of sound and image, a delightful document of an anti-depressed young man's homecoming and the relationships it (re-)kindles. Co-stars Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Ian Holm, and Jean Smart are all terrific but it's Braff's maturity of vision that makes this film a winner all the way. • The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Practically imperfect and forgivably sloppy on occasions, Wes Anderson's long-awaited "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" remains oceans twelve above your average Hollywood "comedy" by its sheer ingenuity and refusal to take anything seriously. Bill Murray (of "Lost in Translation" and Anderson's own sophomore effort "Rushmore") effortlessly delivers another phenomenally deadpan performance as a Jacques Cousteau-like documentary filmmaker/marine lifer whose eccentric team of oceanographers and unpaid university interns pursue the man-eating jaguar shark that has dined on Seymour Cassel. Pardon its incongruously lousy trailer, for "'Steve Zissou" is a hilarious piece of entertainment. • Rick Forget "Lemony Snicket." The best Daniel Handler this year came in the form of "Rick" (or "rrrrRick" according to its opening credits), a caustic corporate satire that's also a spry retelling of Verdi's "Rigoletto" (if you can believe that). Bill Pullman pulls off another delightful oddball as the eponymous, "Image"-conscious Rick, a twitchy, volatile mess of a man with a dead wife, a promiscuous daughter ("Blue Car"'s Agnes Bruckner), and a penchant for callousness that transcends the boardroom. Director Curtiss Clayton handles Handler with fiendish flair, keeping Rick off-kilter and immensely entertaining. • Sideways Although the sun-dappled Santa Ynez Valley vineyards stretching as far as the eye can see are lovely to look at, it's not the California countryside that makes "Sideways" a trip worth taking. It's the company. Paul Giamatti outdoes his Harvey Pekar with another loveable schlub, a hapless misanthrope who takes his former college roommate Jack (Thomas Haden Church) on a week's fling in vino country prior to Jack's upcoming nuptials, with Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh as the influential women they meet along the way. Writer/director Alexander Payne ("About Schmidt") keeps his essential, observant comedy rich, rewarding, and very real throughout. • Super Size Me Much as Errol Morris's "The Thin Blue Line" sprung a falsely accused man from death row so too did Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me" encourage fast-food giant McDonald's to do away with its Super Size menu option. Such is the innate power of the documentary film. Inspired by a couple of overweight teens who sued Mickey D's for contributing to their obesity yet lost due to "insufficient evidence," Spurlock undertakes a one-month, McDonald's-only diet to document the devastating effect fast food has on the body. The result? An impressive first feature that's as funny as it is frightening. • Touching the Void Kevin Macdonald's sensational film, part documentary, part dramatic re-enactment, chronicles the near-tragic 1985 attempt by British mountaineer Joe Simpson and his climbing companion Simon Yates to scale the perilous west face of Peru's 21,000-foot Siula Grande. Expertly shot and edited, "Touching the Void" is a breathtaking experience that engages all of our emotions — awe, sympathy, fear, disbelief. It's truly a great film, one that puts a human face on adventure by starkly dramatizing the power of man's indefatigable resolve. • A Very Long Engagement (France) The director and star of "Amélie" (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tautou) reunite for this grimmer, grimier, but no less magnificent moviegoing experience. Meticulously detailed and handsomely crafted, "A Very Long Engagement" pits the breadth and obscenity of war against a more intimate human drama, that of a crippled young woman (Tautou) steadfastly refusing to believe her betrothed has died in the bloody trenches of WWI's Battle of the Somme. Jeunet's eclectic and winning directorial style — voiceover narration, inserts/overlays, and concise personal histories — reminds us that you *can* go home again. Most overrated/biggest disappointments: "Open Water"; "The Incredibles"; "Saw"; "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie"; "The Last Shot"; "Fahrenheit 9/11"; "Dawn of the Dead (2004)." Nicest surprises: "Hellboy"; "Secret Window"; "The Manchurian Candidate (2004)"; "Spider-Man 2"; "Beyond the Sea." Wish I'd seen prior to 2005: "Maria Full of Grace"; "Blind Shaft"; "The Motorcycle Diaries"; "Million Dollar Baby"; "Bad Education"; "Undertow"; "S21: The Khymer Rouge Killing Machine"; "Los Angeles Plays Itself." Wish I'd Never Seen: "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie"; "After the Sunset"; "Resident Evil: Apocalypse"; "The Stepford Wives (2004)"; "Thunderbirds (2004)"; "Van Helsing."